I come out in Missoula. Mountains beckon to the north, but a friend who has sort of agreed to meet me in Durango has pulled the itenerary south. I make my way toward Butte through vast valleys.



I should have taken scenic 1, but the freeway itself is magnificent.



Butte is a great town, it has a fully functional downtown, with plenty of venues, walking distance to the Motel 6. I wouldn't go so far to say I was flirted with, but got attention from a pretty blonde. In season, I imagine this would be a great place to lay over. I had an IPA.

 

I craftily decided to take 191 south and enter Yellowstone from the west gate. 191 is God's own highway and I had my first elk spotting from there.




Yellowstone is like the frikin Serengeti, irritating though it might have been.

 

Big *******. Oh, you speak French? Les Grandes Tetons!

 

OK, where was I? Oh yeah. In the road on 191. I hadn't had quite enough of that, so I stayed on it through the Green River canyon.



I'm told, on good authority, that it is really easy to get arrested in Vernal for "doing nothing." I did not find that to be the case.

I dropped down into Colorado though the mysterious dinosaur-themed canyonlands along 64. It is said that this road is neither pretty, nor fun. I would submit that depends on your definition of pretty, and how fast you are going.



Once you get up into the pinyon and juniper past Rangely, it's pretty enough. And how fun it is depends on how fast you are going. I recommend trying to keep it right around 80, it's plenty fun at that speed.

 

70 is always a drag but it doesn't last long. I rolled onto Aspen. Theme song, oddly, was "Silver Spring," which I think is the prettiest song Fleetowood Mac ever did. Normally it would be "Landslide," which Stevie Nicks wrote at the Hotel Jerome. It is admittedly, and self-evidently, about her father.

Never been to Aspen in the winter, always loved it in the summer.



Aspen at dawn.

Surprisingly enough, Aspen is not hoity toity. I am generally aware of how much money it takes to live here, yet the children of the wealthy play soccer on the green like normal kids. One friend I made here is a move producer. He refused to tell me who he was, or what he made until we were gloriously drunk, and brothers truly. Once I saw a couple of kids from the music institute goofing around right here, where I made this picture, with violins and computer sampling. It was heartbreakingly beautiful. Once I heard a string quartet play Cohen's "Halleluiah" and I talked to the artists. I said, why is music in the minor chord so sad? They couldn't answer my question but played sad music, right there on the mall with the sun setting, and screw the happy tourists. I blew into this town once on a Ducati 900, a 1995 like the one Hunter Thompson banged though these mountains and valleys to the point where Brenda Buttner had to come after him (on a VFR 750) to make him give it back, and then wrote about it in Cycle World, and I proclaimed myself a cafe racer, and there are times I think I may be.

Aspen is magic, O my brother. I will come here from time to time as long as there is breath in my body.

 

Here, I find what the Japanese call "oneness between rider and horse." The 2018 FLXR is not perfect by any means but we have made an accomodation to one another. Like having Sasha Grey as your girlfriend, it is up for anything. I come down to Carbondale, for once not stopping for breakfast at the diner.



Redstone canyon, a waterfall. A couple on a scooter share the moment. They act as if they have discovered love.




From the moraine, looking up valley. Volcanic activity cooked sedimentary stone into fine marble upstream from here, and made good anthracite over the pass near Paonia.

Which is, incidentally, the birthplace of Terrance MacKenna, and if you know who that is, we are soul brothers. There's a BMW rally there in mid-summer. I am under the impression that the K bikes are fine machines, and the men who ride them are skillful and have ***** of steel, and they do not ride past. I cheerfully wave them by.

This is biker nirvana. If you play your cards right in this life. this is where you go for eternity.

 

From there, one follows 92 along the rim of the Black Canyon down into Gunny. Hard to get an appreciation for this feature without climbing down into it, which would require work. But this gives you an idea.



This is one of the all-time epic motorcycle roads ever.

 

This hotel in Ouray allegedly met one of my criteria -- it is said to be haunted -- but I dispute that. The guest diary made mention of various odd creaking sounds, but I think a building like this is supposed to do that. Now, the Mitzpah hotel in Tonopah, that place is haunted as all get out. By a deceased hooker. She is said to follow solo male travelers around the hotel, whispering "hey you" in the elevator (which I did not, by any means take). There is also the report of smells. I experienced that, but I would not endorse the idea that it was rose-like. More fundamental than that.

Anyway. Not much nightlife, but if there's a better place to drink an IPA in the sunshine, I don't know where that might be.

 

I had dinner with John Wayne's hat. He was up in Ridgeway filming "True Grit." Word is, he called down to the Outlaw Restaurant asking about takeout. "John Wayne," the owner said. "Look, I'm busy. I have customers to take care of." He had a good humor about it and (it is said) ate and drank here frequently. And left his hat there.

I will admit, I like the Cohen Brother's version quite a bit better. Very true to the original narrative, down to the stilted lines. It's important. The story is about Maddie's shadow, how she projects these things onto the Cogburn and LaBoef characters. The character herself is acting a part, until she isn't. Against characters who know what it means to have a grim duty. Still. Decent steak.

I take the first half of the gateway run through canyonlands like this



I notice in Naturita there are women who are pretty, and unusually petite. It's like a lost tribe of hot, Marlboro-smoking white pygmy women.

 

I have been to the bottom of that canyon on my Bagger! The road down has many switchbacks and is an 18% grade, I was told that over and over by the gate attendant as I told her I was headed down there. The road is paved, but has obstacles of gravel and chipmunks. It is a sight to behold looking up from below.