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It’s nice to ride in the morning because it’s cooler, more peaceful, and the wind usually hasn’t started yet. Oh no, but not in Kansas. Leaving Garden City at 8:30 AM the wind was awake to greet me, a hot and humid blast of rude awakening.

And so it was for 200 miles. The only change was a sudden drop in humidity from shower-room-wet to rice-cracker-dry within about 10 miles. So by the time I reached the Colorado border I was so slap happy that I could hardly see straight. I stopped at this cool building in Lamar, Colorado to rest from the weather:

From Motorcycle Trip

After way too much time getting pummeled in the plains, the Colorado mountains were a welcome sight. It took seemingly forever to reach them, definitely hours, but reach them I did.

The lower mountains were hot, dry, and not particularly pretty. The high mountains, many miles in, were breathtakingly gorgeous. The temperature plummeted and finally there were pines.

From Motorcycle Trip

This is a shot I took while climbing Monarch Pass in Colorado. This pass reaches 11,500 feet. I could drive this road every day and not get bored. The road itself was in great shape, allowing me to lean deep into the corners, and it was pleasantly cool.

What a day. I’ve gone from humid, flat Kansas farmland to incredible alpine scenery. I’m now in the small town of Gunnison, Colorado which is the neatest little town I’ve visited on my trip. I’m going to walk the streets for dinner and scenery and enjoy my last night on my summer trip.

I don’t know what the usual day is like in Kansas, but today it was chilly and raining, then scorching and tremendously windy. Crosswinds suck.

Kansas was the objective of the trip, the reason I wanted to see the Midwest. After all, what’s more Midwestern than Kansas? It’s prairies and fields were as I expected them to be, but to be honest, Nebraska would have been the worthier destination.

Not that Kansas didn’t have its upsides. It was cool looking. What I thought was flat in Nebraska was nothing compared to the flatness I saw west of Dodge City. I like to call this region “freaky flat” and it really is. There few trees out there (those few trees have grown up leaning away from the constant south wind) and I got the feeling that I was standing on a seashore, only instead of water there was grass.

From Motorcycle Trip

I’m actually really ticked off and tired in this photo, but I had to take a picture of this insanity.

I probably would have really enjoyed the scenery if it wasn’t 100 degrees, with hot wind trying desperately to knock me completely off the bike. It’s never a good sign when you pass by a giant garden of wind turbines spinning away. With the wind coming from the south, every oncoming tractor-trailer hit me with a shockwave that felt like someone had actually jumped out of the moving truck and landed on me.

Anyway, enough complaining about the wind. It was bad. Yadda yadda.

I did get to see a Kansas thunderstorm though. It came towering over the horizon as I approached, an ominous dark line that stretched across the sky, with darkness behind. Other motorcyclists were stopping beneath overpasses to wait out the storm, but being insane, I rode straight into the storm. Oh, and it rained. A lot. All my gear is waterproof so I didn’t get too wet but it was hard to see and traction was bad. I was glad when I was through the storm.

Garden City is a nice enough town, and it was nice to arrive at the hotel. I managed to park the bike on the north side of the hotel, out of the wind, so I could rest peacefully.

Nebraska is truly gorgeous. I didn’t expect any lush scenery on my route but this state is truly lush. In the northern part of the state, which has large rolling hills, I could easily have mistaken it for Pennsylvania or upstate New York. Yes, there is corn. Corn everywhere. This was the first day that I could have kept riding long past my destination because the scenery was incredible.

Leaving the hotel in South Dakota this morning I worried that I wouldn’t be able to make it. Last night my room was immediately next to the hotel lobby and I was constantly awakened by slamming doors, laughing bikers, and later, howling wind and rain (which further dirtied the bike). From 1:00 to 3:30 AM I was wide awake. In the morning I felt utterly exhausted.

Thank goodness for the countryside which was bright and clear from the night’s rain. From Winner through the rest of the day I meandered through some of the most beautiful country I’ve seen in the United States.

From Motorcycle Trip

Nebraska is interesting because, while it is very rural, you never feel like you’re in a remote place. It’s all feels like home. This is Main Street USA country. The towns fly American flags throughout, and the houses are neat and well maintained. Riding through Genoa, Nebraska I completely expected to see an apple pie cooling on a windowsill or boys walking along with their baseball mitts and bats.

From Motorcycle Trip

The way people talk here is fascinating. It’s very purely American, without any hint of an accent, like an anchor on the nightly news. The whole place seems friendly. A farmer on a tractor waved to me, as do many people in the towns, even some of the teenagers. It’s all so foreign to me, yet familiar, because I’ve seen places like this in movies and read about it in books my whole life. It’s simply America.

Heading south of Norfolk, Nebraska the land starts to flatten out. Soon the hills are gone and then it’s really flat. The flat lands come up suddenly and it startled me. I had to take a picture:

From Motorcycle Trip

I’m now in the small town of Geneva and I’m going to post this before my wireless internet dies again. My travel inn is hardly the Waldorf, but it’s pleasant enough. At least I can check on my bike through the peephole in the door. Tomorrow I take an intentionally long course through the center of Kansas, and then turn west for the trip home.

What a day!  I won’t lie, it was a long ride.  Leaving Casper, my spirits were high as the scenery began to flatten out:

From Motorcycle Trip

It’s impossible to tell from this picture but, still in Wyoming, the mountains are gone and in their place only rolling hills remained. A little further out, in Lusk, Woming, the humidity became noticibly higher and there were trees! While it’s still arid, the humidity is much higher than Utah and sagebrush has been replaced by tall grasses. By the time I reached South Dakota a few hours later, things looked like this:

From Motorcycle Trip

Oh kids, this is no longer the intermountain west. I followed my Google Maps precisely, but with the flattening of the land came a strange sensation that I was totally lost. I’ve heard about Utahans leaving their home state and feeling disoriented without mountains, and I scoffed, but that’s precisely what I felt today. I could have been heading the opposite direction and I wouldn’t have known it. PERSONAL NOTE: Install a compass on your bike when you get home.

My intention was to stay off the interstates on this trip. I planned a route that would take me through the back country. I didn’t fully understand what “seeing the countryside” would entail until today. I was SO FAR from civilization that it actually scared me. Even in the towns there was usually no gas or services. A Wal-Mart? Forget about it. Not even an antique shop. The “towns” were almost always little outposts with less than 100 people living there. I’m glad that my bike has a 300 mile range or I would have been in serious trouble.

Again today the roads were (sparsely) populated with Sturgis traffic. Here’s a photo from outside my hotel this evening:

From Motorcycle Trip

Can you spot my bike? Granted, there was one other bike in the parking lot that wasn’t a Harley (the Victory Vision in the foreground). I had dinner at a diner with other bikers and they were tremendously friendly and willing to talk to me. They couldn’t care less what I was riding, only that I was out on the bike. They were from Illinois, Michigan, Tennessee, and Iowa. All were headed to Sturgis of course, but these folks wanted to take the long way and they were in no hurry to get there. They were great people; never mind the leather and bandannas.

After a long day of feeling disoriented and worried about gas I arrived in the tiny town of Winner and I’m glad to be relaxing. Tomorrow I’ll ride again, this time into Nebraska. I’ve seen my first corn field, my first red barn, and my first harvester rolling through the center of town. I’m sure there will be more tomorrow.