Kevin – Friday. With our RV park reservation expiring this morning, we pulled out and parked the rig at a local hardware store while we did our trail work. Denny drove us out east of the Greeley airport and I started biking north on Colorado HW-47, Weld County Parkway. It has a wide shoulder but the oil tanker trucks are zooming by pretty fast – 65 mph compared to my 10 to 15 mph. We just hope I can be stable and the drivers are paying attention to the road.
After just 3-1/2 miles, the route would take us east on HW-392, but it has no paved shoulder at all. A white line, 4 more inches of asphalt, the drop off and then gravel and grass. Nope, we’re not biking that. I’m not ready to meet my Maker just yet.
We consult the map apps and find some dirt roads we can bike that parallel the ‘best’ route that most closely follows my interpretation of the original trail. Some dirt roads don’t go ‘all the way through’ so we have to take that into consideration as well.
This is a heavy agricultural area. Most of the fields have been extensively plowed over the decades and most of the trail evidences have been destroyed. In the next few days we’ll start seeing some segments, but for today, we’re just putting in miles on the bikes.
Besides farming the area is also host to many feed-lots for cattle. Lots of manure lots and manure recycling businesses. Piles of poop all over the place. Our hamburgers are being prepared. Other animals of nature, but I’ll let Denny share her experience on that topic.
And, the area is underlaid by petroleum deposits. There are oodles of well heads, pumping stations, tank farms, pipelines and assorted support services. One set of oil related structures is a tad mysterious, so I approach a Chevron worker sitting alone in his truck and ask about it. Brett is all too happy to explain. He is the foreman for this oil field and (bless his heart) must be one of the loneliest men in the world. Brett provides not only the answer to my question, he extolls the benefits of petrochemical products and energy vs. other energy sources. It was enlightening.
Denny and I keep trading off who is riding vs. driving the sag wagon. As I catch up to her at a BIG hill, I find she’s off the bike and walking it up to the crest. She sheepishly admits that this particular hill ‘got the best of her.’ Accordingly, we institute the Big Hill of the Day (BHOD) Award for the beastly hill that makes either of us hike it.
Our ‘stair stepping’ route from one road to another gets us to Highway 14 about 5 miles west of Briggsdale, our goal for the day. For those last few miles we have to go back to driving since 14 is too narrow and too busy with no alternative roads. Being so close to Briggsdale allows us the chance to look the area over some.
We drive into the Crow Valley Recreational Area. RV slips are either First Come-First Serve or reserved ahead of time. There’s just one FCFS left, so we drop the bikes in it, pay our fee and head back to pick up the RV.
And, since it’s Mother’s Day weekend, and since we don’t really have the tools and opportunity for me to cook a worthy meal, I take Denny to an Italian restaurant. Yumm.