It was a pretty good year for bike trips in 2014. I didn't take a lot of trips, but what I did was high quality. The main trip of course was my ride down to Telluride, Colorado for the annual bluegrass festival, but there were a couple of nice shorter trips as well: a day ride in early spring down to Palouse Falls, and an overnighter in October across the north Cascades.

The scenic route to get to Colorado included forested roads in Oregon, a shortcut across northern California, speedy crossing of the high desert of Nevada, beautiful rock formations in Utah, then climbing the Rockies to end up in Telluride. After the festival we toured some of the best roads in the state, went north through Wyoming, entered Montana via Beartooth Pass, then slabbed it on home through Idaho on I-90. To date it's the best trip I've taken yet. The variety of environments, roads, and weather combined with great travel companions made every day a joy.

My shorter trips usually help fill in the gaps between big trips. I always enjoy riding down in the Palouse. I guess it's because I spent some years during college working on farms so I appreciate seeing the work that farmers do. This year's trip across the north Cascades was something I'd been planning to do at some point but never got around to. I can certainly recommend this to anyone that wishes to take great roads and see some phenomenal scenery. I also did my yearly trek to the top of Mt. Spokane. It isn't much compared to the Colorado Rockies I rode earlier in the year, but I always enjoy the vistas that can be viewed from the Mt. Spokane peak.

One of the unexpected consequences of my long Colorado trip was that when I got back, I didn't really feel like going anywhere for awhile. That two week trip matches the longest period of time away from my wife Vicki and staying home with her for awhile felt like a much more enjoyable way to spend my time. I appreciate her willingness to allow my periods of wanderlust and of course we do wander off with each other as well.

So what's next? My brother Dave and I have a trip to Alaska in the works, but that will be several years in the future as his two boys are at an age where he doesn't want to be gone for three weeks riding. I don't blame him a bit - he's got his priorities in the right place. So if not that, then what? Dave and I are toying around with a 10 day trip in the spring to Death Valley, California. Death Valley? Where's it's hot? Sand? Desert? Yep. One thing we both appreciated about Utah was the beauty of the desert. The thing about Death Valley is that if you're smart, you go when it's not 120 in whatever shade that exists down there. So we're tentively planning a trip down in March - three days down, three or four days riding the park, and three or four days heading back home maybe via the Pacific Coast Highway. It'll be just the two of us because this time we will be specifically looking to ride the dirt roads of the park. Most of our riding friends would not be interested in the dirt. Both of us are looking forward to getting a set of knobbies on the bikes and putting more "adventure" into Adventure Touring.

With two of my kids getting married in the spring and summer, a trip to Death Valley will probably be the only real trip I take in 2015. But it'll be a trip worth taking.