It wasn't on purpose, but this morning we woke up early enough to catch the sunrise from out hotel room balcony. It was beautiful, and a great way to start the day. Of course, we took a picture. After breakfast at the Fair View Terrace, we began the awesome 15 mile ride out of Mesa Verde National Park. It really set the tone for what was a scenic and motorcycle riding Sunday. We weren't the only ones with that idea though, there were lots of bikes out today catching the last few weekend rides before winter sets in. I noticed on the weather today that they have already had snow at Glacier National Park. Glad we did that one early!
    Once out of the park, there was about a 35 mile uneventful ride on US-160E to Durango before we turned north on US-550, another awesome motorcycle road . Starting from about 7000 ft in Durango, we ascended up to Coal bank Pass at 10,640 ft. Then we dropped a couple of thousand feet and ascended to Molas Pass at 10,910 ft. Then we dropped a couple of thousand feet again and ascended to the top of Red Mountain Pass at 11,108 ft before dropping back down to 9300 ft and the town of Silverton. All this happened over the 48 miles between Durango and Silverton. This is the path to cross the San Juan Mountains that was started as a toll road back in the 1880's.
     Evidently, crossing the San Juan Mountains were a big deal back then and this road was built to accommodate them. It's a spectacular road with lots of twists and turns, switchbacks and steep climbs and drops. A lot of the road is rim road where there is nothing between the road and the steep drop off.   It was just great fun to ride, and we stopped at each of the pass summits to take pictures. There weren't a lot of places between the passes to pull over.
     After Silverton, we had evidently made it across the San Juan Mountains, because the rest of the road was still fun, but more of the typical mountain road we are used to . It did drop further from Silverton and passed through a mining ghost town that looks like it will be preserved. Further along, we passed through Ouray which evidently has hot springs. There is a huge pool in the center of town with a water park around it that appears to be fed from the hot spring. It looked like great fun, but low 80's is too cold for us Floridians to consider swimming. Ouray also has a cascade waterfall, but this late in the year the upper falls were pretty much dried up, but the lower falls were still going strong.
  There were also several mountain lakes and the Red River which looked like the makings of a sportsman's paradise. Since it was Sunday, there seemed to be a lot of locals fishing, boating, and 4-wheeling all over the area. US-550 finally ended for us in Montrose, as we turned east on US-50E. It was 128 miles on US-50E to Salida where we were spending the night. The first 100 miles were pretty uneventful, though there were a couple of passes that weren't very high and a short stretch where we followed a river and had canyon walls on both sides . Just a nice, relaxing motorcycle ride.
    Until the last 30 miles or so, We didn't realize it, but to get to Salida, you had to go from the 7000 ft elevation of most of US-50 to the 11,312 ft elevation of Monarch Pass and then back down to the 7000 ft of elevation in Salida. Of course, we didn't realize we were climbing that high until we were doing it. The climb heading east was pretty typical with twists and turns and switchbacks along the way. When we reached the summit, there was agift shop that sold t-shirts, so of course we had to buy some. There was also a aerial tram ride that took you all the way to the top, we we thought we were high enough and skipped the tram.
     The ride coming back down was far more interesting than the ride up. There were very few turns and switchbacks on the ride down, it was mostly just straight and steep so we could really build up some speed. It was great fun, but we dropped altitude so quickly and as soon as we hit the bottom we were at the hotel, that my ears hadn't popped and I could hardly hear the hotel clerk.
     Luckily, there was a good Mexican Restaurant next door to the hotel, so we could walk over. The food was great! Tonight I will load up on drugs for my head cold, and hopefully it will be better in the morning. Tomorrow we are heading over to Rocky Mountain National Park. It's supposed to be really beautiful there!

295.7 miles today
17,009.2 miles total

5.069 gallons today
401.927 gallons total