Meet me in Montana

Cliff and I love Colorado; the mountains are beautiful, and it's only a one-day trip from home. We don't go there every year, but we talk about going.

Since buying the motorcycle, we've talked about either riding the Gold Wing out there, or taking the car and pulling the bike on a trailer so we can ride it when we get to the mountains. We seriously intended to do that last year, but it didn't happen for whatever reason.

A few years ago on a message board I no longer frequent, I mentioned Colorado and somebody responded suggesting that Glacier National Park is not so commercialized, and much more beautiful. A seed was planted. From time to time I'd surf the web for pictures and information of the place.

Trouble is, according to Mapquest, it's a twenty-two hour trip. Wow. Of course, all the driving is up to Cliff, and he's not fond of driving long distances in a car. But last night, since he was surfing the Internet anyhow, I emailed him a link and asked what he would think about trailering the motorcycle and heading up there; I also sent him a link to the Glacier National Park website.

He was starting to sound interested by the time I went on to bed.

It would be great fun to just ride the motorcycle up there and leave the car at home, but the weather can really throw a monkey wrench into long bike trips and make the journey last days longer than planned, if rain sets in. Besides, six hours in one day is about as much riding as we old folks can comfortably do; at that rate, we'd need two or three weeks vacation to make the trip, and I get homesick after a week or so.

As I told Cliff, at our age, we probably don't have that many motorcycle-riding years left. One of several reasons I put off knee replacement is that I'd be pretty nervous on the motorcycle knowing that just dropping the bike could mess up an artificial knee, say if I put my foot out to help catch it... and once those replacement knees are messed up, they don't repair too well.

So, time will tell whether this is just more idle talk that comes to nothing, or if I get to cross one item off my bucket list.