1998 — A New, Young Old Fart Joins the Group

This year brought one major change that set it apart from every previous year—we had a fourth rider. Johnathon joined us, riding on the old Yamaha Virago 750 he had gotten from John.

So we took off on a Friday afternoon, riding west on I-70 to Glenwood Springs, where we figured it must be time to stop for a beer. Or two. Then we headed south on CO 82 to Carbondale, where we caught CO 133, which goes up over McClure Pass.

We didn't cross the pass that night, though. We stopped at Redstone and camped in a nice campground that had very flat, level, gravel-covered tent sites. Thank goodness for foam pads and air mattresses.

Our buddy John, ever the lover of cool, fun stuff, had brought some Cyalume lightsticks to show us a new trick he had picked up. He broke the stick to activate the glowing gel and then snipped off a bit at one end so he could flick glowing showers of stuff on the ground, on us, on anything that seemed appropriate. He was right. It was cool and it was fun.

Next morning we had breakfast in Redstone and made a stop at the old coking ovens where the road through town rejoins the highway. Then up over the pass and down through Paonia and picking up CO 92 at Hotchkiss.

On to Crawford, where we made an obligatory stop at the Mad Dog Cafe. This biker-loving watering hole, now closed, was run by the wife of rocker Joe Cocker, who decided to live in the area, and whose wife apparently wasn't happy just sitting out on the ranch doing nothing.

We followed CO 92 along the north rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison to where it joins US 50 and headed east along the Blue Mesa Reservoir. At the eastern end of the reservoir we picked up CO 140, which runs up to Lake City, where we spent the night.

On Sunday we headed on down CO 140 and made a stop at Creede, where ice cream is always on the menu. Then on to South Fork, where we picked up US 160, which took us up and over Wolf Creek Pass and down into Pagosa Springs. From there, US 84 took us into New Mexico and to US 64, which leads to Chama.

We had been in Chama before and gone south from there, so this time we took the road northeast that leads back into Colorado, to Antonito. This route runs alongside of the Cumbres and Toltec steam railroad and when the train came along we stopped and shot pictures of the tourists shooting pictures of the bikers shooting pictures of them.

At Antonito we turned south back into New Mexico and headed for Taos, crossing the spectacular Rio Grand Canyon on the way. We stayed again at the El Monte Lodge, where we had stayed the year before, in the large suite with our own semi-private patio and barbecue grill.

From Taos we headed to Espanola on the Low Road to Taos that Bill and John had ridden the year before. We had considered taking the Angel Fire loop that Ken took the year before but forest fires had closed that road. In Espanola we spent some time—and money—at the casino and as we were preparing to leave the casino made the announcement that people might want to adjust their travel plans due to the forest fire blazing nearby. We stepped outside and the smell of smoke was strong. Traffic going the way we had intended to go was a parking lot due to the fire, so we took an alternate route. Cruising along we saw a slurry bomber coming over and got to see it as it dumped its colorful payload on a blaze not too far from us. That night we stopped in Los Alamos.

We headed west out of Los Alamos, skirting Bandelier National Monument, down to San Ysidro, where we turned northwest. We cut through the Jicarilla Apache reservation, past Navajo Lake, and ran on up to Ignacio, to the Indian casino and hotel there, where we spent the night.

The next day it was on through Durango, to Cortez, and over Lizard Head Pass to Telluride. We all did some hearty partying in Telluride but this was where Johnathon shrugged off the dead weight of the old guys and did some serious partying long after the rest of us called it a night.

The following day it was a fairly short ride to Clint and Amy's in Olathe and we spent our last night out with them. The next morning we took some route home and thus ended another great saga of the OFMC. As to what that "some route" was, we really can't remember. It would have been jumping on I-70 and blasting home or else taking US 50 and US 285 but we don't know. We weren't keeping records back then.

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