After my first day on the KLX650 in Wyoming, I was happy with its performance. The Bighorn forest had taken me above 9,000 feet and the bike ran just fine without carb adjustments. This was a good thing, as I'd brought along nothing to make any adjustments except a screwdriver. I suppose it helped that these types of motorcycles tend to be jetted fairly lean from the factory, and I wasn't giving the bike much of a chance to use its main jet. My SP200 would have required jetting changes to work well here, and certainly would have struggled to scale a few of the mountain peaks.
Today would take me even higher into the mountains of the Medicine Bow forest. Some of its peaks topped 11,000 feet, which was high enough for the KLX to feel the thin air. Near the Sugarloaf campground, power output was definitely lower, but with 650cc's to work with, the bike ran me up and down the mountains with no complaints.
The big Kawasaki did complain a bit when it took me through a brief section of singletrack. I'd been riding down the perfect two-track jeep road (pictured below) when the path gradually narrowed until only one track remained. Suddenly I was riding The Beast in bona fide dirt bike territory. The mammoth machine was no match for narrow singletrack, but I pushed forward anyway. The trail had to lead somewhere, right?
It did, directly into the middle of a logging crew.
A group of burly men were scattered around the largest chain saws I'd ever seen. I pointed the bike through the center of this gathering, where the trees had thinned out and I could see a logging road ahead. A few of the men were within arms reach as I chugged through the leftover remains of a fallen tree, thinned of its branches and recently removed. The mess of sticks and twigs on the forest floor would have been simple for my race bike to float across, but the KLX was tricky. One man yelled something unintelligible in my direction, but I kept churning through the branches until I reached the logging road. From there, I cracked open the throttle and exited quickly.
This was a day where all I wanted to do was ride. I paused to eat and drink and refuel the bike, but otherwise I was on the road, taking in all the views I could find. My mind shifted in and out of the present moment to the stress of beginning a new job in a new town, making new friends and living at new addresses. The job paid better and was more interesting than my previous position in small-town Illinois, but the stress level had increased. My new boss was the polar opposite of my old boss, who I had considered a friend and mentor. I now was faced with rush hour traffic and boarded airlines to exotic places like Des Moines. Things were different now.
This trip was a time-out to reflect and unwind from it all. My life had taken a bumpy transition, but soon the St. Louis experience would level out and I'd find the life I wanted. Wyoming was a step forward in figuring it out.
