james dunes

james dunes
Originally uploaded by bmwrider

James my travel gnome makes a great hit at the sand dunes.

My bike at the Great Sand Dunes

sand dunes
Originally uploaded by bmwrider

A quick drop off at the Great Sand Dunes National Park to take a pic of the bike at the edge of the dunes. This is a great place to spend the day.

Colorado scene

Colorado scene
Originally uploaded by bmwrider

Another landscape from Colorado.

Some landscapes

Hay rake
Originally uploaded by bmwrider

I did get around to do a few landscapes for Project 52 and will post them later, as I am working on the laptop and the screen is not the best. I love this are along Hwy 69 in Colorado.

James takes a rest too!

James comes out of the saddle bag to enjoy the fresh Colorado air and views. What a great day!

Self portrait

You just have to have at least one of those self portraits while you are on vacation. Taken just above the Black Canyon.

Aliens?

I had to take this shot for my friend Anthony because I am sure he would wonder what or who would live up there. I saw a few UFO's in the area, but one of the government workers at the dam said that was normal. So I guess I believe, as Moulder would say.... It kinda reminds me of the Devils Tower in Wyoming that was used in the movie Close Encounters.

Max and I near the Black Canyon

There is this lake near the Black Canyon that goes for miles and miles. I don't know how long it is, but it's the largest lake I have ever seen.

Another view along Independence Pass

It's a windy and bumpy road on the way up. It was really cold today and I had on all my winter gear and was still a little chilled. Stopped off at Leadville and got some hot chocolate to warm me up before to ride up.

The road from the pull out.

The road to Independence Pass as seen from high above one of the small pullouts along the way up. There are no guard rails up here, so be sure the parking break is on! Hey, motorcycles don't have them!

More snow at the pass

James at Independence Pass, 12,095 feet and some snow. It was very cold at the top and lots of people were around taking snappys and playing in the snow. Wat a view from up here. We had planned on going to Aspen, but a snow storm turned us back down the mountain.

Bad weather today.

We were planning on going up Independence Pass today if it was open, and it was. This is the view just a few hundred feet to the pass. About 4 ft of snow up here, but the roads were good. As we made it to the pass, it started snowing. The plan was to go to Aspen for lunch, but after taking a "safety minute" we decided that ICE and MOTORCYCLES did not mix. We will see aspen on another day.

No internet yesterday

The Wi-Fi was out at the Best Western in Eagle, CO yesterday. We tried to find a hot spot and was not lucky. So we will play catch up tonight. Here is the link to the pics.
Flickr will be down at 8:00 pm pacific time today for two hours, so Images may not be available for a few hours.
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Durango, CO to Gunnison, CO

Sunday - Day 3, May 27 2007

Milage for the day - 260

It was in the 40's this morning when we checked out the weather chanel. We loaded up our gear and headed to get some free breakfast at the hotel lobby. Normal stuff, but it saved a lot of time looking for some place to eat. We dressed warm for the ride to Silverton, but we would later in the day start sheading some clothes at it warms up. The road to Silverton is nice and has some spectacular views. Once we made our way to Silverton, we found a place to get a soda and rest for a little bit. We ended up at the Brown Bear Cafe..I like the sound of that. There were about a dozen BMW riders there as well as other bikers. The place was busy and I bet the breakfast was good. Max was not hungry, so we just had a Coke and a smile.

The road out of Silverton has some of the most spectacular views of the Colorado mountains. Between Silverton and Ouray, the view is worth a million bucks. Maybe that's why the call it the million dollar highway. We did not stop at Ouray because we were in a hurry to get to Ridgeway to eat some lunch. After lunch at Subway, we were on the road to Telluride. The road and views were some of my favorite so far. Lots of fields of flowers, old buildings and mountain scenes around every curve. If I was on a photo trip, I could spend several days here. Once we got into Telluride, we saw lots of people out in the streets and the Mountain Film Festival was in full swing. Took a few pics and we were off to Ridgeway, and then to Gunnison. The road to Gunnison from Montrose is a lot faster than any of the other roads so far and not as scenic. We did follow Black Canyon Lake for a long time. We did not run into any rain today and that was a good thing. Getting tired, so I better go for now.
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Another tourist shot

IMG_0368
Originally uploaded by bmwrider

That's about all I have been taking on this trip.

Lots of BMW's today

IMG_0391
Originally uploaded by bmwrider

We meet 5 riders from Arkansas today! Small world! We saw more BMW's today than any day so far.

James, dowtown Telluride

IMG_0403
Originally uploaded by bmwrider

Just traveling with my Gnomies.

Just above Ridgeway, CO

IMG_0415
Originally uploaded by bmwrider

The bikes with scenic Colorado in the backdrop.

See today's images

You can see the Colorado snapshots at this link.

We get to the hotel today and as we get off the motorcycles to go check in at the hotel, we see the sign...CARS ONLY! D'oh! I don't think we will get a ticket.

My Bike just above Silverton

Here is a shot of the bike just above Silverton, Colorado. Note==== NO Guard Rails!

max and james

max and james
Originally uploaded by bmwrider

Max and James at the Alamosa Train display downtown. There is a geocache here also!

Max in Colorado

max colorado
Originally uploaded by bmwrider

Check out the view on hwy 12.

James visits wolf creek pass

James visits wolf creek pass
Originally uploaded by bmwrider

James the travel gnome gets to experience his first snow. He was was dressed for the weather and he said it was good to cool his feet down from a long day of traveling.

Wolf Creek Pass

Wolf Creek Pass
Originally uploaded by bmwrider

Today we were at Wolf Creek Pass at 10,800 feet and there was lots of snow all around. This was a great ride and you can't beat the view.
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Colorado Motorcycle Trip 2007

Raton, NM to Durango, CO

Saturday - Day 2, May 26 2007

Milage for the day - 330 miles

We started the day at the Raton Police station where we left the trailer and truck. We took about 30 minutes or so to unload the motorcycles and then we were on our way. The exit to Highway 12 was blocked off for construction, so we had to take a detour in Trinidad till we fond the way. Hwy 12 was a nice ride and we went through the Colorado country side with a majestic view of the mountains in the background. It was a very nice ride till we connected with the highway that leads to Durango.

The highlight of the day was going through wolf creek pass at 10,800 feet. There was snow on the ground and the view was so nice. Took some photos and headed down the back side of the pass to Durango. I was tired after the 300 miles and needed to recharge before going to downtown Durango. We went downtown and they were having a block party with a live band and the people were enjoying themselves. We hung around for a few minutes to listen to a few songs. Then we walked around downtown to check out the town. Back at the hotel we are blogging and watching the weather channel. Looks like rain tomorrow. Hope it goes away.

I'll post some more pics tonight.
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Ready to rest for the night.

It's been a long day and I am ready to go to bed. I shuffled everything around to make room for some more gear. It will be cold in the morning and I will have to dress warm for the first part of the day. I was able to talk to Becky tonight and it was great to hear her voice on the phone. I miss my family already, but I am enjoying the trip with Max. We laughed so hard today I almost could not see to go down the road. Having a blast and can't wait to see Colorado tomorrow.
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Ducati at OK City BMW

Ducati at OK City BMW
Originally uploaded by bmwrider

Nice Duck at the BMW dealer in OK city.

Link to Colorado pics

This link should get you to my Colorado Trip folder to look at the snapshots from the trip.
Trip Photos
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James at the tower

James is such a ham for the camera! He insisted on leaning like the tower for this shot. What a clown!
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Day 1 off to a good start

The day started off at 4:30 am today as we loaded up and headed to Colorado. I filled up with gas near my home in Knoxville and paid $3.49 a gallon for fuel. We paid $3.22 and $3.36 later in the day. We found 5 geocaches along the way today and that was about all we had time for today. Our main objective was to get to Raton, NM in about 14 hours. The roads were very rough in Oklahoma and we had to stop once to tighten down the bikes. It's hard to believe how bad the roads are out here.

There is not much to look at on the road through OK and TX. We stopped at several rest stops that had geocaches and logged them and quickly hit the road again. Later on down the road we stopped to get gas and me saw a man carry his dog across the parking lot to go do his business. Then he picked the cattle dog back up and returned him to the truck. I said "The dog has you trained!" He responded that the dog makes him $150,000 a year and does tricks, rides horses, and other tricks at rodeos. He gave me a coloring book of the dog and horse, so I will have to check it out when I get home. He said he was much better than Skid Boot and I had told him I had seen Skid Boot in action several years ago. We wished each other luck and a safe trip and we were on our way.

Down the road in Texas we stopped at a leaning water tower that is along the famous old route 66. The tower was made to lean in hopes it would bring some tourist dollars to the town. We stopped for a photo opp with James the travel gnome as well as a kidnapped orange cup of a friend. We are having fun! Later we stop by one of the largest crosses I have ever seen. The large metal cross has lots of statues below it and it is a real nice area to stop and reflect.

I'll post some more later.
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Motorcycles loaded, ready to go.

Motorcycles loaded, ready to go.
Originally uploaded by bmwrider.

Here is the configuration of the bikes on the trailer. Looks like it will work out just fine. We had to turn the bikes around to make them fit, but I think it will work good.
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James the travel Gnome ready for the road trip.

James the travel Gnome ready for the road trip.
Originally uploaded by bmwrider.

Had to make a last minute trip to Wal-Mart tonight to pick up another bag for the trip. It seems that the photographer in me just can't go on a trip with ONE camera, so I had to get another bag. Space is very limited on the motorcycle and if I had some electric gear I would not need all the cold weather gear. But you can only spend so much money for a trip, so you can read about me freezing my butt off.
One more day and we will be on our way to see colorado. stay tuned for some cool images as well as some good stories.
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---I noticed today that Picasa picture posts were not working, so I deleted the broken link. I will try to post the image later. Sorry about that.

Here is the little poster I made to send out to friends as well as post at work. Max had sent me a link to some cool motorcycle pics and I placed them on the poster as well as put a pic of "James" my Travelocity travel gnome that will be joining us on our trip. Stay tuned for me posts leading up to the trip. I am posting from my laptop via Picasa2, which is a tool that will alow you to post images to yor blog from the software. This is just a test to see how it works.
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B&W colorized BMWrider.

B&W colorized BMWrider.
Originally uploaded by bmwrider.

As you can guess i was on the other end of the camera today and my lovely wife was taking photos of me today. She did several images of me and this is one of several I liked. Converted to B&W in Photoshop and brought back some of the colors of the jacket. I just need a cool hat to finish off the image!
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Equipment testing.

Last night I was testing out some of my equipment that I am going to take along on the Colorado trip. After doing lots of photography trips to various places, I have learned to test things before a trip. My friend Kevin from New York always makes sure that we test things before we go. It is an essental concept to do, because the middle of no where is the last place you want to see if something will work. I make lists, he makes lists and then we compare and do this process till everything is right. Max and I have been doing this for this trip also by using Google's Gmail to do this. In Gmail you can set up documents you can share with other users and allow them to edit them. Everyone involved in the document gets to see the changes when they are made. You should try it!

I get my laptop out last night and start doing some prep work for the trip in Photoshop. I wanted to play with the actual size image from my new snapshot digital camera to see how I wanted to format them for the blog. Got my card reader out and placed the SD card in and it would not read. Strange I thought.....I tried it again and no luck. I gave it to Becky to try on her laptop and it did not read. Well crap, it worked the other day. I took it to my other two computers and it did not work. This had me a little worried and my brain began to click with ideas. I went and got another SD card that I use in my GPS and plugged it in and it worked! Plugged the other card from the camera and it did not work. I figured I would need to use the cord to transfer the images from the camera to the laptop. This mornning I took one of my other SD cards and took a picture and the card reader read the SD card. So the Sandisk card reader will not read the Sandisk SD card, but it will read the PNY SD card. I can't figure out why it does it, but I have a work-around to get the images of the card. Strange, but that's what happens when you play with geek toys!

Now it is time to go check out some other things on the list. I'll keep you posted.
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After the storm

After the storm
Originally uploaded by bmwrider.

Last Wednesday I was headed to town and got caught in a real down pour. I had to stop off the road and let the storm go by because the rain was so bad. I think it is the hardest I have ever seen it rain! After the storm passed, I continued to my destination which was Wal-Mart. From the parking lot I just had to take an image of the storm as it passed. I love having my point and shoot digital with me most of the time.
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