Canadian Rockies Blog
Wow! As usual, the first day was a long one. Sometimes that is a figurative long day, today it's a real "long day".
The crew, as usual, is Jim, Doug, and me, Fran. The ladies will join us later.
We started the day at Jims house.
We met up at 8am. All 3 bikes were packed and ready to go. Of course, as tradition states, the first leg of the journey was about 3 miles long. Sunnyside Grill for breakfast! Got to have a good meal to start the day. After all, we might not stop for food again until late in the afternoon.
After breakfast it was on the road. We wanted to make the first part of the trip a quick one and cover a lot of miles. After all, we've seen Indiana and Illinois quite often.
We took 74 all the way to Iowa. We took 74 to Iowa 67 north. Doug mentioned that LeClaire Iowa was the home of the Antique Archaeology show the American Pickers. Side trip! Actually, not much of a side trip. It was ON rt. 67. All we really had to do was turn in the drive. I've only seen the show a few times but I remember seeing some of the stuff they had in the shop. Doug saw a lot of the shows where much of the display stuff was picked. It's neat to see things that you saw on TV.
Not exactly an exciting ride, but it was a good one.
From LeClaire we headed north on 67 to the Bellevue State park. Here is home for the night.(photo #1903)
No internet access, so this will be posted tomorrow, or, whenever.
Total Miles for the day 498.
As a side note, on our first day, we passed through three of the four states that begin with the letter I. We'll hit the fourth on the way back.
As a second side note, on the way up 67 I made note of the enormous amount of very wet land along the highway. Awful lot of mosquito ranching going on up here. This was duly noted at the campsite.
Mark stopped to see Tom today and he filled in the details that were missing from your blog. First of all, you are snowed in above 13,000 ft in the Colorado Rockies. Snow had drifted over the roof of the house. The whole town nearby was running out of food, no one could get in, they were trying to get the National Guard in, but that wasn't working so well. Doug somehow made it to the next town over. He maxed out his credit card and bought food for the whole town so they wouldn't starve to death. Jim and Fran built a big bonfire in the shape of a teepee to keep warm. Jim had just stepped out of the camp when he heard a woman screaming. He had to make his way to her house in all that snow to get to her. Unfortunately he had to break the front window to get in. The woman was in labor and Jim delivered the baby. This was a cute little guy with red and black hair. Mom and baby are fine. The husband is away in Georgia looking for work. Even though mom and baby were fine, they still had to call the paramedics. Because of the weather conditions they sent for the helicopter. But, alas, they couldn't land in the snow. So they had to land it on top of the mountain, which for some reason, did not have snow. Ever resourceful, Fran and Jim built a big pontoon for it to land on. This enabled the helicopter to smoothly slide down the mountain to where the woman's house was. Both mom and baby were airlifted to Denver. Meanwhile the National Guard still is trying to get through to Fran, Jim and Doug, however, they cannot promise any particular time. Mark and I were quite surprised to hear of this bad snowstorm in July, but we has also learned that you just can't trust the main stream media. Hope you guys get out soon!
ReplyDeleteAren't we clever?
ReplyDeleteClever, you guys are heroes!
ReplyDeleteI have always enjoyed uncle Tom's stories. His imagination is amazing. I am glad you all made it safely through the snow storm and were able to put your MacGyver skills to good use. Safe travels and I love you all!
ReplyDeleteThere's. Another story coming. The I one with Jim's tent collapsing on them. If we don't have enough adventures of our own, we can get some ideas from Tom.
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