2015 Colorado Caching – Part 1

Last September son Yancey and I began motocaching (Geocaching on a motorcycle) the counties of Colorado.  I had already logged some of the counties in the northwest part of the state on previous trips to visit Yancey.  I posted a series last year on our assault on the northern and eastern part of the state.  That trip netted me 28 of the 64 counties.  We ran into so much rain and cold weather on that trip that we decided we would do this year’s trip earlier.

I love traveling on a motorcycle but a little Interstate goes a long way.  I’ve made so many trips across Wyoming on that Interstate that I wasn’t eager to do another.  So I decided I would trailer my bike down and take the family (wife and dogs).  Besides, I miss them on these long trips.

Ken helps me load

My trailer is a small tilt trailer designed to haul a 4-wheeler and works pretty well for that purpose.  However, when combined with a wheel chock bolted to it, it hauled the motorcycle superbly once loaded.  Unfortunately it was about a three person job to load it and a two person job to unload it with much trepidation.

We left home the 30^th of July.  We would ordinarily stay the first night with son, Clint, in Gooding, ID, but he was in the midst of moving so we got a motel in Twin Falls.  Finding the motel was a good lesson in not letting the GPS instructions overrule your common sense.  We ended up going down a steep twisty road down the Snake River canyon to the river.  There was a beautiful golf course there but no Super 8.  Eventually we found the motel with a new found confidence in the trailer’s ability to securely hold the motorcycle.

After settling in we went out into the desert to find a couple of geocaches and give the dogs a chance to run around.  Of course, it was hot and Nellie can find a mud hole in the driest desert.  She got absolutely filthy.  Fortunately we were parked near a big truck stop and there was a nearby hydrant with a patch of green grass that enabled me to give her a pretty good wash down.

Long line behind us

Burned out

We set out the next morning after our Super 8 breakfast intending to stay in Rock Springs.  However, we were making such good time (no stops for geocaches) that we saw we were going to arrive in Rock Springs just a little after lunch so we called and cancelled the reservation.  We had second thoughts when we were stopped a short distance west of Rock Springs due to a semi wreck.  The truck trailer had blown an outside rear tire, tumbled off the Interstate down into a ravine and caught fire.  Somehow the truck tractor had caught fire as well.  There were huge bellows of black smoke and traffic was backed up for miles.  We were stuck there for an hour and twenty minutes.

Dogs waiting it out

Desert caching

We went on to Rawlins and found another Super 8 there which wasn’t quite up to par.  Again we took the dogs out in the desert for a couple of caches and again Nellie found a mud hole (slow learners) only this time Bess joined her.  After we got back to the motel I used their water bucked to haul water out to the parking lot to wash them.

We got another early start the next morning and were at Yancey’s place well before lunch.  They have a couple of Boston Terriers and the older one, Blanche, and Bess got into it right away.  It was several days before a truce was grudgingly declared.  Bess loves the truck and that’s where she slept every night while Nellie found a soft pillow in the living room. [To be continued] M/W