Epilogue- The Windy Continental Divide

Mt Massive

It may be true that as long as we are alive the story never ends. And as the Artist of my life story I know that I could keep on writing because the story keeps on unfolding.
      I was able to get the Mothership home and have spent the last few days in anticipation of the moment when I would get to write some more in this Epilogue of the Mothership Meander of the West Coast of the United States.
      I took back my brother in law's borrowed car on Sunday the 24th of April. Mary came over in one of our cars to visit her mother, so I would have a way home if the mercurial spring weather closed down the way back over Battlement Mesa and Tennessee Pass into Leadville and down the Arkansas River to our house. The distance of 160 miles was enough that the weather was developing different ways in different areas of the drive. But Monday morning after I cleaned a layer of bugs off the windshield and front of the motorcycle, I left under slowly building weather and overcast skies. Once I cleared Glenwood Canyon on I-70 I got some sunshine and temperatures in the low 60's. In the climb over Battlement Mesa out of Minturn the wind starting gusting and by the time I reached the summit of Tennessee Pass it would push on the Mothership pretty good, warning of the changing weather. Stopping on a back way around Leadville I took this picture of Mount Massive, one of Colorado's fourteen thousand foot peaks. You can see the remains of the snow that had made me pause in El Jebel and the scudding and torn clouds in the wind here at ten thousand feet. The roads remained clear though, and as I drove to lower elevations the temperatures came up. The drive over the Continental Divide took just over three hours and within a few hours of getting the bike home it  started to rain with the weather remaining unsettled all week with snow forecast here for tomorrow the 29th of April.
         As I rolled the big beemer into it's home in my shop, I felt more elation for having completed this big endeavor. The final mileage for the trip was 4,129 miles. And in gratitude to my equipment, when I put the bike up on it's center stand to check the rear tire, I was amazed to find it did just that, it just got me home. I must of driven over something in Glenwood Canyon, the back tire had two open scars on the center of the tread all the way down to the cords! I won't even push the Mothership out of the shop until I have removed the rear tire and installed a new one, it was that close! This is not the first time I have felt thankful that what ever I was driving just got me home. I have been left "out" and been towed a few times, heck, I have had small airplanes I was flying leave me standing in a field. So I am grateful, if for nothing else, my luck.( Luck enhanced by attention!)
       I continue to be grateful for how much the motorcycles I have owned have improved through the years. While it is an adventure to ride a motorcycle this far instead of a car, it is eminently easier that thirty years ago. But the most gratitude goes to living in a country where this is so easy to do. Just go and see it from the seat of a motorcycle. To be healthy and of an age where I can appreciate what I saw, what I did. For me, another incredible life experience to add my life story.
     I am the Artist of My Life Story looking to whats next, One Day at a Time!

Will by the River.