On the road with Chuck Wetzel and Graham Littrell

Departure was July 4th and we returned 10 days later. 4500 miles, and a great itinerary put together by Chuck and we stayed with it for most of the first day because we just found some great new roads everyday. Day one took us to Santa Rosa, 620 miles and then the riding began. We went up through CO and into Utah, a side trip was to Dinosaur National Park, the dig site is outstanding. The history of the area will overwhelm you. I can’t comprehend that this place was once in South America and drifted to its present location. Don’t think about this for to long or you will get very tired. We stayed in Vernal, UT. That’s it, nothing else to say about Vernal, UT.

Next morning found a back road in Utah, the 35, and cut over from Vernal to the 80/84 and on to Boise. Chuck made me go to the carwash before attending the rally, so we looked good riding into the fairgrounds. Here we met up with an old friend, Mike ‘The Wrench’ Darnell. Mike had been in Boise for several weeks and knew the roads, so on Sunday we met for the traditional Sunday morning breakfast ride and went up the 21, the Sawtooth, to Stanley and onto SunValley and Ketchum. Then Chuck and I left Boise and rode up the 55/95/12 to Lolo Pass to Deer Lodge, MT. From there it was to the North entrance of Yellowstone, I missed the turn to exit the East entrance so we missed riding Bear Tooth Gap. We exited the South entrance and rode 15 miles/15 m.p.h. on roads under repair and to Cody, where we stopped early due to threatening weather. We had threatening weather from day one and only got into anything heavy on the second evening in CO. other wise we wore our raingear and that warded off the showers, but could not ward off the afternoon heat. Breakfast in Thermopolis and huge headwinds all frigging day, which meant lower gas mileage, so Chuck found another one of those great gas stations he had been using, this one had a cardboard sign, that read ‘Gas’, I never did see the company logo, now it was onto Delta, CO for the night.
Next day to Ouray and the “Million $ Highway”, the 550 and Durango, we believe you could spend 10 days riding in this area, just spectacular. We stopped to visit Richard Jacobs, who has a place in the mountains. Place is a modest word to describe Richards home and the area. Richard is very lonely now that he has sold his LT and will be waiting until the fall to replace it. We left Richard and went through Durango and into somewhere in New Mexico for the night. I had to be back for a meeting so the next morning we split and I cut through to Sanderson and the 80 MPH I-10 and was back in Boerne by three. Chuck cut through West Texas and arrived that afternoon also.

A few of the pictures are attached hope you enjoy them, the trip was great; no problems, great roads, and only a couple of mediocre meals. Chuck put together an outstanding basic itinerary and then we added to it, we found roads like the 139 out of Loma, CO, 90 miles of outstanding riding. It was hotter than hell when we left Loma on the 139, after about 5 miles, we are into good elevation and climbing, which meant very nice temperatures. It was after rides like this that we figured we would be getting around 15k miles off our new tires, 8k on the bottom and 7k on the sides.