It’s Bike To Work Day here in Colorado, but it seemed silly to go out to the garage to fetch a bike for the 27-step slog from bed to coffeemaker to iMac. So I walked instead. Sorry ’bout that.
I don’t see a word about BTWD on either of the websites attached to the newspapers that grace our fair community, surprise, surprise. In fairness, there are other stories to be covered, like the Supremes wiping their black-robed asses with the Voting Rights Act, Fort Cartoon losing a brigade and our summer-tourism piggy bank roasting on a very big spit.
Still, if more of us were encouraged to cycle to work instead of firing up the family battlewagon, maybe we would be less inclined to build our homes 30 miles from the cube farm, up in Yahweh’s kindling pile.
Sunset outside Weirdcliffe. Photo: Hal Walter | Hardscrabble Times
Judas Priest. More fires. Not in the immediate vicinity this time, but we’re sure as shit getting the smoke.
This is worse than anything the Black Forest fire threw at us (well, down here by Chez Dog, anyway). The Gazette says this cloud is either from a fire near Wolf Creek Pass or another going on in Jefferson County. Others are burning in Huerfano County near the Spanish Peaks, Cañon City, up by Rangely … gonna be a long, hot summer, folks.
The prevailing wisdom at the moment is that these are lightning-caused. So I’d like to know whether the NSA has been monitoring God’s communications, and when we can expect an arrest.
It was chores, chores, chores today — a full shift’s worth of my usual stock in trade, which is to say bicycles and bullshit — and I didn’t pay much attention to the Black Forest fire until it was about time for Herself to motor on home from her gig in Denver.
And then, holy shit! The friggin’ thing is spreading like a head cold at Interbike and more evacuations are ordered, this time in Bibleburg proper.
“Traffic nightmare in northern Colorado Springs,” quoth the Gazette.
“I-25 is completely congested. Avoid traveling if not necessary,” added the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office.
El clusterfucko, bucko, as we say south of the border (Monument Hill). I’m thinking she’s gonna be idling at Baptist Road for the better part of quite some time. And you know how those Baptists are.
So I propose going long — E-470 to Interstate 70 to Highway 24 and home. Or maybe C-470 to Highway 285, then jink down through Pine and Deckers to Woodland Park and thence back to the ranch.
Nope. She blazes right on down the Big I to home and hearth — and with hardly a bobble, too. Go figure.
Ride the Rockies is not so fortunate. Thanks to the Royal Gorge fire, they’re getting rerouted through our old stomping grounds of Weirdcliffe, which adds some 33 miles to their ride from Salida to Cañon City, many of them uphill.
I know all of them well, having ridden them as a Crusty County resident and as an entrant in several editions of the late, lamented Hardscrabble Century, which tackled Weirdcliffe from the other direction, from Florence through Wetmore and up Hardscrabble Cañon.
The riding is easier the way the Rockies types are doing it, once they’re past Bear Basin Ranch. From there, it’s mostly downhill to Graybar City. Whip a power salute on H. Rap Brown as you roll past Supermax Florence, kiddos.
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