Riding to the West side

Saddled up with my bud Neil and headed west earlier this month. My friend from Ireland had planned to go but tore his rotator cuff and was out at the last minute. Nothing like picking the hottest possible date to go on a trip.


Anyway, I left Indy at 0300 to beat the heat a bit and met up with Neil in St. Louis (he's from Chicago). made it as far as Lawrence, Kansas and the 115F heat was wearing on us. So we packed it in at about 2:00 PM and fell into a hotel there.

Nice enough place, but a bit weird...
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Very small town and the town center was 2 blocks away. On the way in, we smelled BBQ - so off we went in search of the source...
This was it, a small bar downtown....
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Dead animal heads on the wall, so it's gotta be good...
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Ice cold Stella for starters....
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And then the chow arrives. Half rack for me...
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And the Cholesterol Platter for Neil....
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At 5'6" and 120 lbs., Neil can eat more than anyone I know. Little guy killed it...
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We're fat and happy with bellies full of food and beer, so we head back to the hotel. Downtown Lawrence....
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I said the hotel was weird. We parked under the canopy at the main entrance, and then had to walk over this railroad track bridge to the building...
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Odd layout for a hotel.

Up at 0300 again the next day in an effort to beat the heat. It was 87F at 3:00 AM! This is gonna suck.
Packing up the sleds...
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We humped across Kansas and eastern Colorado as fast as we could.
650 miles and 10 hours later, we're in Idaho Springs, Colorado for lunch.
Pizza at BeauJo's....
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I had like 2 pieces and Neil killed the rest. Amazing.

After lunch we rode the last 60 miles or so to our hotel in Vail...
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Nice place, but I felt kinda weird walking in there with all of my riding gear on.

We we firmly ensconced in suite on the ground floor, even got a small patio room upgrade. Sweet!
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Okay, we've been here for 10 minutes, time to find beer and some food for Neil. Off we go and fall into the hotel bar - didn't get too far...
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Beers were good but menu looked kinda iffy, so off we wander into the village...
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and into a slope-side outdoor cafe. Tempo was about 75F - which felt freakin' cold to us - with a light breeze. Great place to sit and get toasted on locally brews...
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Not much by way of chow here, so off we go...
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And into another sidewalk cafe....
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This one apparently serves dogs at the bar, sounds good to us...
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Neil is happy with a small plate of nachos. Just a light snack since he had 3/4 of a pizza 3 hours ago....
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We're drunk and full and tired from the day's ride. But it's only like 3:30 PM local time, so we walk around looking at **** for a couple of hours...
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