It finally got warm enough to entice me out of my house (which is warm now after a furnace replacement last Sunday, which followed a hot water heater replacement about two weeks before that). I wasn't sure how the roads in the mountains would be or how hard the winds would be blowing up that way, so I went back to what's become a default ride. Northeast of Greeley toward the Pawnee National Grasslands. I went east on US-34 past "Cows-R-Us," a huge feed-lot just east of the little town of Kersey, and then turned north, crossed the South Platte River and followed it back west a ways. Then, northeast to Briggsdale, a little community on CO-14, east of Ft. Collins. North from there until I turned east towards Grover. I hadn't gone far when I got to a detour, which took me several miles on gravel, before skirting Grover and then heading north until turning back to the west and the practically non-existent town of Hereford, CO. From there, it's just a few miles to Wyoming, where ( surprise! ) the wind was blowing. I went south of Carpenter, WY, and followed Campstool Road into Cheyenne. Then south on US-85 to Pierce, and county roads home to Greeley.
I took my camera thinking I might get some wildlife pictures, but the only thing I saw was one herd of pronghorns in a location where there was no place to stop the bike safely. So just take my word for it -- they were beautiful, a mixed herd of bucks and does, no little ones yet. Some of the males had good-sized horns which they'll lose and regrow every year. The babies will arrive in late May. The bucks and does will separate by the end of this month and stay away from each other until the end of summer when they begin "connecting" to start a 7-month gestation period.
spotwalla.com
BTW, if you click on the "tags" on the Spotwalla map I've attached, you can see how fast (or not) I was going at the time. I like to look at the maps in either the "Satellite" or "Hybrid" modes. You can zoom in close and see amazing detail in the satellite mode.
I took my camera thinking I might get some wildlife pictures, but the only thing I saw was one herd of pronghorns in a location where there was no place to stop the bike safely. So just take my word for it -- they were beautiful, a mixed herd of bucks and does, no little ones yet. Some of the males had good-sized horns which they'll lose and regrow every year. The babies will arrive in late May. The bucks and does will separate by the end of this month and stay away from each other until the end of summer when they begin "connecting" to start a 7-month gestation period.
Grover Loop - Campstool Rd
spotwalla.com
BTW, if you click on the "tags" on the Spotwalla map I've attached, you can see how fast (or not) I was going at the time. I like to look at the maps in either the "Satellite" or "Hybrid" modes. You can zoom in close and see amazing detail in the satellite mode.
