Who put that mountain there?

     Did ya miss me?  Probably not.  I hope everyone had a good Labor Day Weekend.  We had breakfast Sunday morning at Sydney's Restaurant, which was attached to the Best Western Motel in Kearney, NE ,aka the Titty Twister from Dusk till Dawn.  I was waiting for Quentin Tarantino to walk in with George Clooney and a family of hostages.  The place was decorated in the darkest woods, paints and fabrics they could find.  It was a bizarre group of patron, the strangest being the scrawny little guy in the short sleeved white dress shirt.  He looked like a character out of a Utah Bigamy movie with his two sister-wives.  They walked in, perused the minimal breakfast buffet and then he asked the waitress if she had something to put his sausage in.  I thought it was another marriage proposal until I heard him say he wanted to be able to eat his breakfast while driving.

     Leaving at about 8:45 am, we had an awesome ride through western Nebraska with awesome weather.

Sunny skies but cool temperatures and light traffic. We took the opportunity to take some action shots since the traffic was scarce.  We stopped at the first exit in Colorado to take off our helmets and another couple pulls in to get gas.  It wasn't difficult to guess where they were from!  We started to get ready to pull out and he says, "Colorado isn't a helmet state?".  I said not that I know unless they changed it from earlier in the year.  He started packing his away then.  On we rode, passing bicyclist heading east.  That's right, bicyclist, out in the middle of eastern Colorado with not an exit in sight!  What are these people thinking?
      We stopped for lunch in Sterling, Colorado at a place called Gallagher's River City Grill.
I had the Santa Fe Burger with sweet Potato Fries and it was delicious!

Santa Fe Burger

 the place was recommended by the lady at the gas station.  It always pays to ask the locals.  After lunch we headed west again, hitting some areas with strong crosswinds.  They weren't too bad considering we could still ride straight up rather than at a 45 degree angle.  Finally the Rocky Mountains came into view and we knew we were close.  About 26 miles from Golden, my odometer rolled over to 30,000 miles. Woo Hoo!  We checked in and got cleaned up.  We had a 6 PM dinner date with Tom and Dawn Terwilliger and Jay and Kelly Beliveau.  We had met Tom back in 2010 and Marybeth knew Kelly from back in her youth.  I had never met Dawn, Kelly or Jay, but after dinner at Table Mountain Grill in Golden, we were all new old friends. We finished dinner and sat there for an hour or two just talking about past crimes and shenanigans while the staff was cleaning up and getting ready for their next business day.  After dinner it was photo time and we started out innocent enough but when we got the serious pics done with, we started doing poses like Tom's longtime friend, Ron Starantino, who was Tom's workout partner back in the late 80's, early 90's if memory serves me correctly.  They traveled Europe  

together training for the Mr. Olympia.  I'm related somehow to Tom because all Terwilligers are related, not in a West Virginia kind of way, but the original Terwilliger settled in upstate New York and took the surname of Terwilliger http://lystykds.0catch.com/tfafiles/tfaoriginsd.htm .  OK, you're back? 

Anyway, Ron has this way of posing for pictures that is a bit unique and we had some fun at his expense.

Ron, don't kick my ass, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!

Ron Starantino & Kane Holder (They weren't there)

Tom and Tom and Marybeth

Tom and Tom

Tom and Dawn

Tom and Dawn

 Monday morning we loaded up and headed out, with Richfield, UT as our destination.  We gassed up at the Sinclair station by the entrance to I-70 and were shocked by the price of premium.  $3.829 a gallon!  Hadn't they heard about Hurricane Isaac?  Didn't they know of the catastrophe in the gulf?  How could they price their gas at $3.829 and stay in business?


     We headed west and I was in awe of the awesomeness of the views.  We reached the summit at 11,000 feet and started our descent.  Just before the exit 157 for Steamboat Springs, there was some sort of accident  in the east bound lanes that had had traffic backed up for quite a ways.  I couldn't tell if it was bicyclists of kayakers involved since Marybeth said she saw a kayak in the mess! We stopped at a rest area to put on some warm clothing since it was in the 50's and had spotted another sign advising to put chains on so we knew we were about to hit higher altitudes.  We met another couple from Illinois and we took some pics for each other.

   We headed on and caught more awesome scenery.  Glenwood Canyon was fantastic and we eventually made it to Clifton Colorado, just short of Grand Junction.  We had an awesome BLT and moved on, eventually landing in Richfield, UT. with a little re hydrating on the road.  Yes, that's water I'm drinking!

 Thankfully there was a restaurant open on Labor day called Wingers and the food was very good.  It was the only place open in town!

 That's all for now, considering it's Tuesday at 6:38 PM PST as I'm just now finishing this.  For the other prospective, check out www.mbsshenanigans.blogspot,.com.