June 6 2025 Day One

June 6, 2025 – North Platted NE – Day 1

 

Sitting in the Peg Leg Brewery in North Platte Nebraska having a few sour beers some food and good company. Even though I’ve been hearing how stormy the Denver weather has been, I was able to make today’s ride rain fee, yeah! I’ve been watching the weather and made alternate plans on heading thru South Dakota and making a stop in Rapid City to stay with my friend Kyle, but according to the radar, rain in the North Platte area may be heading thru early and drying up later that I decided it’s been too long, 19 years to be exact since the last time I was thru Nebraska that I went for it. Only have about 3 hours left to make Denver tomorrow and was surprised to find out I am still in Central time and won’t change to Mountain until half an hour up the road. 

 

I was a good biker and according to my search of helmet laws, saw that Nebraska had one, so my gas stop just before crossing the border, I pulled out my helmet to make sure no tickets on the way thru. Well once I hit stop and go traffic around Lincoln, rush hour, I noticed a biker with a helmet so pulled up next to him and asked and fortunately the No helmet law went into effect January of 2024 that I didn’t need it after all. Ok, have it on that I might as well wait until my next gas stop to get rid of it which was nice to have. A bit of repacking, but I’d rather ride without the helmet. 

 

For some odd reason riding thru Nebraska felt like de Ju view even though I think I was heading East thru the state last time I visited. Today I was watching what looked like rain both north and south of the freeway that I think I was watching the same thing some 19 years ago as I was riding thru the state and just like then, was able to avoid an all out rain where I’d have to put on the rain gear.

 

Ok, so by the time I got started on this story, ended up meeting a guy from Chicago, Wade that was traveling thru with a buddy heading to Colorado to drop off his 12-year-old dog with his parents cuz he doesn’t think the dog would survive a trip to an Asian country. Wade has been all over the country for one reason or another, so we had a good visit, and I enjoyed meeting him.

 

Back to the trip and although i wasn’t in any kind of a hurry to get going since I had weather to deal with did finally hit the road around 10 and it took just over 7 hours to get here. I did start out a little slower since it’s been awhile since I’ve been traveling the freeways at 90 so only did about 85 until I got to Iowa and had some people passing me which normally doesn’t happen that once I got it dialed up, to 90 that is, it was a comfortable trip the rest of the way. I could tell it’s been a while since being in the saddle, maybe it felt that way after my second gas stop, but after the third stop my ass was already ready for the ride so no problems getting as far as I did. I did check the weather a couple of times to make sure the weather was going to blow thru and after my last stop saw it’d be clear the next 160 some miles to North Platte that I went for it. 

 

I found myself a La Quinta to spend the night and did notice there are a number of hotels in this area, but according to the booking app a little cheaper stay than some of the others. Yes, about a half mile walk to the bars and restaurant across the street, but not bad at all and they did have an awning that I could park my bike under, hopefully security cameras so I could leave my bike packed with my camping gear and not worry about it. I did notice the comfort Inn did have more bikes parked under the awing, but for almost another $100 for a stay not worth me trying to fight for a spot. 

 

I got three states out of the way today but have a few more to go before getting to Portland. So, the plan and stays that I’ve mapped out for this trip is Denver, Aspen, Monument Valley, The Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, Salt Lake City and then Portland Oregon for at least a week at Shelley’s daughter and husbands place. I did visit many of these places 19 years ago but am going to try spending a bit more time at each park trying out my camping skills to see more of the sites than I did back in 2006. Already I know it’ll be more of a challenge than back then because now you have to make reservations a head of time to visit the parks so I’m hoping my plans spending an extra day at each will allow me the time to setup an appointment to visit. We’ll see how it goes and be assured I’ll share any other details on what to expect even if you might not be looking to visit any of these parks any time soon. 

 

I did forget to mention how many times I packed and repacked, but I do hope I have enough cloths to get me far enough West before I have to worry about laundry. Yep, the pack is packed as full as it can be and tonight, I’m going to do a little more repacking. Very little space for anything more, but once to Portland I can send extra cloths home with Shelley when she fly’s home so I get to pack light for the return home. 

 

Sorry I haven’t posted the 2024 stories, but welcome to the 2025 Where is Webby tour and stay tune on more fun to come.