The plan we established Monday night for the coming days included checking out the Badlands in South Dakota, finding our way to Sioux Falls and being home by Wednesday night on my day 45. Welp, the force works in mysterious ways. Colorado was less than 400 miles from us, we have a friend in Fort Collins that needed a visit, Dylan has a sister in Denver and I had friends waiting whom I’ve never met, one of which was in town only for the night. We figured we could still check out the Badlands and then make our way to Colorado all in a day’s work. And so it was.

Very unique landscape. The Badlands National Park was laid out kind of interestingly. We decided to try out a road called Sage Creek Rd that went through the southwestern portion since that was the direction toward Colorado. It was a cool route but the road was comprised of gravel and doing anything more than 30 mph most of the time was impossible. Eventually the road straightened out a bit and we were able to go a little faster, but 60 on a bumpy rocky road was a little nerve wracking.

After the badlands, it was South Dakota, Nebraska and Wyoming back roads until we hit Cheyenne. We hauled ass towards Colorado to make it before dark.

As we were riding in on Interstate 25, the sunset manufactured some of the craziest red and purple clouds over the mountains. Dylonious set forth toward his sisters and I met up one of Cami’s former crash pad mates for some libations and heartwarming conversation. Thanks again guys!

In the morning Dylbert, his Sister and I met up for some breakfast at the Denver Biscuit Company for some tastey butter smothered nuggets of pure delicious before heading out to Rocky Mountain National Park.

4 National Parks in 4 days, not too bad. Rocky Mountain was a tad chilly, but can’t expect any less at 9500 ft. It sprinkled on us on our way toward the Bear Lake trailhead but for the most part we stayed perfectly dry. The only other time I’d been here, there was 5 feet of snow on the trails so I was excited to see what things looked like otherwise.

 

 

 

After our hike, we hit the road toward Fort Collins where our buddy Rickolas just recently moved. The great thing about Estes Park and the mountain area in general is that you can’t really avoid finding yourself on a scenic road. Whatever way you take into or out of the park, it’s going to be awesome, along a babbling stream, through a winding canyon and up and down through quaint little towns.

One more day in Colorado we decided. So Thursday after a lazy morning chilling with the gusys, lunch in Boulder and back to Estes park. The route we took toward Estes from Boulder was out of this world. It’s known as the Peak to Peak scenic byway and the entirety of the 50 miles or so was an excellent ride.

We’d hoped to find a cabin to rent for the evening for some real backwoods type shit, but things were booked solid, so we had to resort to a historical haunted hotel instead. The hotel that Stephen King’s The Shining was based off, the Stanley Hotel.

Today we woke up, made our way down from the mountains and started our way east. The drive down was great, everything else was not so great. Eastern Colorado quickly turns to flat cow land, and the winds were outrageous. I thought Wyoming and Montana were bad, today was a whole different story. Driving sideways most of the time, both our necks are sore from combating the bullshit gusts of Nebraska.

Tomorrow we make our way to Chicago, and hopefully make it all the way. It’ll be a haul from Grand Island Nebraska, but the force is strong with us. And hopefully there wont be any neck breaking winds.

Here were the last few days’ routes: