Day Six - Durango to Gunnison

This promised to be an exciting day. First a little reading: http://www.dangerousroads.org/north-america/usa/635-million-dollar-highway-usa.html 

That's right, today we rode the Million Dollar Highway. There's a few theories why it is called that, perhaps it originally cost a million dollars a mile, perhaps there is a million dollars of ore in each mile, nobody seems to be sure. 

But first we had a date with a man in a parking lot. Brad had a line on an AirHawk seat and a guy offered to sell him one second hand. 'How about $340 said the guy?' I was thinking more like $50-60 said Brad. 'OK said the guy in the blue Jeep, let's call it $60!'  And with that Brad was on his way to posterior happiness. 

OK back to the Million Dollar Highway - up we went and in the lovely weather it really wasn't too bad. Our first stop was Silverton - home of the highest Harley store in the world. 

 
Sliverton is a very interesting town. A very open air outdoor jumping off point. 

Look at the variety you can get in this store. An antique hat or a concealed carry gun purse!



We carried on up the MDH until we got back to Ridgway, our stop the night before last. This time we stopped at the True Grit cafe and had a terrific lunch surrounded by John Wayne movie memorabilia. The movie was shot in and around the town. 


For our afternoon's enjoyment we travelled to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison - a national park with terrific views down from the jagged black cliffs into the canyon floor. Later we even rode down a 16% grade full of hairpins to the river that flows through the canyon. 

 



Sadly Brad's bike decided to play the boiling gas game again but by now he knows how to cool it off and coax it back to life again. 

We reached Gunnison by late afternoon and settled in for dinner and the usual rounds of conversation. Life is good on the road!

There's a possible change in route tomorrow. A feeling has developed that it might be better to shorten the day's ride. But whichever route is chosen tomorrow night should see us in Colorado Springs. 


 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day Four - Grand Junction to Ridgway

Image
This was a fantastic day! By the way, have we discussed weather yet? No? Well, it's been outstanding, although pretty hot! - particularly in the west and as we work south.  On leaving the hotel this morning we enquired about the Colorado National Monument which we had read about. 'A must' said the check out clerk and with that we were off to see it. And it was a must! A 26 mile drive along the canyon rim with views of spectacular rock formations and down into Grand Junction.            It took a while but after completing the rim drive we set off down the road on our day's route.  As soon as we turned onto Hwy 141 it was a great run through the valley floor of increasingly higher and higher canyon walls.  It was super hot and after about 60 plus miles we came to the town of Gateway which has special significance for one of our group.    We gassed up there and learned there was a resort with a restauarant just down the road. Incredib...
Read more

Day Five - Ridgway to Durango

Image
..... by way of Telluride.  We left Ridgway - home of the True Grit cafe (the movie was filmed in Ridgway) and Ralph Lauren's ranch - on a clear, blue sky morning and headed a short way down the road to Telluride. What a cool town. Laid back just like you expect it to be.          We had to break Jack out of jail    Then on down Hwy 145 to Dolores - but just to give you an idea of what riding in Colorado is like!   Once again a fantastic motorcycle road. Twists, straights, and scenery all the way. And, at lunch time in Delores, a terrific Mexican cafe.    After lunch it was a short but scenic ride to Durango which almost got derailed when the ignition switch to Brad's bike flew to pieces. Either the motorcycle gods were kind to us or we are actually getting good at fixing these things because, unlike last year in Gallup, we actually got this one back together.  The Harley store in Durango gave us some input on what to do if thi...
Read more

Day One of LZB's ride home - Denver to Billings Montana

933 km. 10 hours 12 minutes. Set off at 5:40 am - finished up at 3:52 pm. Can I just say that being out on the high plains caught between 2 competing thunderstorms is absolutely no place to be on a motorcycle!  Lightning, rain ( not too heavy), crazy wind shear - put paid to any thoughts I had of going on to Bozeman. So downtown Billings overnight it is then on again tomorrow!  May try for Sandpoint Idaho tomorrow night.  Time for a nap!! P.s.  Things I missed today - the Crazy Woman river and the Little Bighorn battleground.
Read more