Day 4: Rocky Flats Lounge

We pulled into Rocky Flats Lounge, a little building across from a TXI cement plant. They have a Friday Fish Fry. It's Sunday, but they also say that lunch is served, so hopefully we're in luck. Nice dark bar. Ordered drinks and burgers and I went out and sat out on the patio, waiting for Tony to bring out our drinks.

About 5 minutes later he comes out and tells me that there's a guy in there who was eating breakfast behind us this morning at the Wondervu Cafe. He came out and then so did our burgers. Filled our tummies again with nice cold beverages.

What a great little spot we happened upon -- thank you Mr. BMW. We met Kevin (the guy at the Wondervu) and Garry (the singing bartender, as his business card said), Paul (don't know what he does) and Button Chuck (a POW who takes pictures and then makes buttons out of them).

Another guy who was still getting over the night before, was waiting for Michelle (or Michele) to show up. Got to hearing their local stories about mountain lions and bears and elk and deer and now MOOSE. All in their backyards. Don't think I'd want to head out the front door in the morning to get my paper without looking around for any wildlife waiting to pounce on me for dinner.

Tony pulled his bike around back for some button pictures. In a field with the Flat Irons in the backdrop. Chuck took some pics, as did Paul. Out in a field, with the bike, for some buttons. With a hawk sitting on a powerline eating something he had left up there for a snack later. We never seem to have pictures of the two of us, but now we do. Some with Tony on the back and me as the driver. If only I had my golf clubs -- we could have hit golf balls in the field out back towards the mountains. Kevin would have participated.

Garry was getting ready to go on his own bike trip to Steamboat and Medicine Bow (I thought it was Medicine Bowl until I looked on the map). Sounds like a great trip. One that when we head back to Golden, we'll have to take a couple of days and do the same.

This is the kind of place you hope to happen upon. Great people, great stories, cold beverages. We stayed there until they were closing the road down and we had a trooper escort out from Rocky Flats towards Golden. And, with a baggie full of buttons and Chuck saying that he was going to send me a CD with the rest of the photos, and some new friends for our next trip to Golden, Colorado, Tony and I could have stayed in the area the entire week. Going on nice rides during the day and stopping by Rocky Flats on the way home. I say "home" because it felt like home.

Our plans to trailer the bike that night didn't happen and we came back to the Hampton Inn and I uploaded the days adventure onto snapfish.com and went to bed. Tomorrow: trailer it up and head to Lead, South Dakota. According to Kevin and Garry it's about six hours away. Don't go over the speed limit in Lusk, Wyoming. That's how they make their revenue.