Day 16 (Aspen to Denver)

I woke up with a semi wet tent. Apparently I forgot to close the outer zipper which keeps the outer shell tight so it doesn't touch the inner part. We they touched and it dripped on my sleeping bag. I couldn't figure out why my feet felt cold until I woke up in the light. Luckily the sun was out and it was fairly warm so iI could dry out my tent. As usual Mike got up pretty late so my tent was fully dry/clean/packed by the time he got up.

We left the camp site and headed into aspen. As we pulled up to McDonald's we thought someone got shot or something but it turns out there was a bear in a tree and the cops were stopping everyone from getting too close. We left the McDonald's on our way to pikes peak. The roads were pretty narrow but we managed to get to pike Forrest in about half the estimated time. Take that Google maps!

We pulled up to the pikes toll booth and the lady informed us basically that we didn't want to go up as there was going to be rain in about 2 hours. I knew it wasn't going to take that long to get up and down so we paid the lady our $12 each and headed up the hill. The road was pretty covered in junk as they had a serious rain storm the day before so I didn't get to make a wicked awesome video like I wanted but the peak was really nice. There was a gift shop and snack bar there so I got myself a pretzel and snapped some pictures. The air is so thin up there that both me and mike felt really light headed. We sat down for a bit and then rode back down the mountain where we were greeted by a rain storm. We threw on our rain gear and rode through. It was only about 20 minutes and then another 2-3 minutes down the road. So far we are winning with the rain.

We rode into Denver and found a $50 room at the super 8. I felt my chain skip on the front sprocket when I tried to pass someone today so I walked over to the parts place across the street. They had a free tool rental program so I got a 30mm socket and torque wrench and adjusted my chain. After some lube it seems good as new. We are FINALLY going to see batman. Figures the place we get the time will be the place a bunch of people got shot seeing the same movie we are going to see. Wouldn't it be crazy if the cause of our death was not the 12,000km motorcycle trip that everyone thought was so dangerous but instead was simply going to see a movie?

Here's to hoping we don't die.

Day 15 (Salt Lake City to Aspen)

We got up and decided to go for a swim in the pool. The water was a bit cold but nothing compared to the ocean so we swam for a bit dried off and left. We drove around the corner and started to do an oil change. We couldn't get the drain plug off Mikes bike so I changed mine and away we went.

Mike wanted to go check out the outlet mall which we thought was on the way but once we checked Google maps we found out we had to go back about 35 miles and then take a different road to get to Aspen. We found our way and drove for a long time. We needed fuel as it was getting pretty close to my fuel light and the sign said last gas for 68 miles. We didn't want to take the chance so we stopped.

After we got gas Mike wanted to rest for a bit so we pulled into the shade and lounged around. A couple bikers pulled up and one referenced the fact that "times like this make me glad I got my .45" as he walked into the store to buy a beer. The thing that made him say that was there was a tranny walking around with some weird costume on. Then the other biker sat down next to me and started rolling a joint. He looked over at me and said "I hope you're not offended". I wasn't but being that we were in Utah and i have heard from lots of people that drugs and Utah shouldn't mix. So we left there promptly and headed to Aspen.

It was really nice driving on curvy roads after the boring drives the 2 days before. We stopped at Walmart in Rifle, Co. for dinner. It was probably the best meal we had for $5 the whole trip (Chicken wings, pogos and chicken tenders Yum!). We got to the camp site after dark and setup our stuff. We couldn't get the fire going as everything was a bit damp. Our redneck liquid fire starter (gasoline) did the trick. We had a huge although stinky fire in seconds. After about 10 minutes it rained for about 10-15 minutes. I had a brilliant idea to take shelter in the bear food locker as we had not yet set up our tents. We sat by the fire again for a while after the rain stopped but eventually it rained really hard so we went to our tents. It rained hard for another 10 minutes then stopped and the sky completely cleared up. We were already in bed so we just went to sleep.