Welcome to The BikerDog Blog!
Unlike the travel map, posts here will be made in longer format, telling the stories of our trips not just where we travel.
A month ago Mom and I left Denver and our very first day out was an adventure. The day started sort of windy but I was far more concerned with the fact that my new doggles were black instead of my preferred red (Mom should have known better) and kept working to remove the unattractive things from my head. Mom kept putting them back on me (I didn’t know she could do that while we were moving! Not Fair. She has no fashion sense).
Then about 100 miles from home, Mom gave up on my doggles (Finally!). She was far more interested in watching the very large, very dark, very unhappy cloud that was forming to Southeast of our path. The winds continued to pick up and the cloud kept getting closer. As the cloud reached us it started to spit a little and I could see Mom was anxious to find a place to pull over. She tells me this is a challenge because a lot of places won’t let me in (I don’t understand – who wouldn’t love me!?) but eventually she saw a small liquor store attached to a convenience store.
Moments after we stepped into the store, the cloud broke and the most evil thing started falling from it – HAIL! We have ridden in a hail storm before (Mom says that our previous hail tale is a story for another day) and we both HATE hail. Fortunately the nice lady who was running the convenience store said that as long as we stayed in the liquor store, we could wait out the storm under their roof. After about an hour the hail stopped, but the rain remained and the winds doubled what they had been.
By this time Bill, the owner of both stores had arrived to take over for the clerk and had kindly looked up the weather reports for us on his computer. The storm was sitting right on our path and was forecasted to remain there for the remainder of the evening. Mom attempted to call the Motel in town, learned that the Motel is owned by a group of local farmers and you actually have to call the local bar to make reservations for a room, and then learned that there were no rooms available. Unfortunately, without a pace to stay for the night, all Mom could do was hope the winds and rain died down enough to make a go at getting to the next town.
Fortunately, as another round of heavy rain blew in with the winds and the sun began to set, Bill proved once again to be a very kind man and said that, since he felt he could trust us, he would be willing to let us stay on the floor of the store for the night. Mom promised we would do nothing to harm such a kind offer and, upon learning that Bill’s wife was sick and they had been unable to hire someone to stock and tidy the shelves in quite some time, did what she could to lend hand around the store for the evening.
Once Bill went home, Mom pulled out the sleeping bag and, as it had been a long tiring day we both quickly curled up and fell asleep. As morning arrived with clear skies and dry roads, we said farewell to our new friend Bill and hit the road again.
While this story happened on the very first day of our current trip, Mom says it is plenty long enough for my first blog post, so I will wrap it up here and continue the tales of our adventures in my next post. Until then, farewell!