Today is just a travel day as we head down the mountain over to Manitou Springs for tomorrows ride on the Pikes Peak Cog Railway. The Peak to Peak Highway is a scenic route between Estes Park and Central City. We began on US-7S, turned onto CO-72W, and then should have turned onto CO-119S to complete the Peak to Peak Highway ride. Unfortunately, somehow at the roundabout I ended up on CO-119N which landed us in Boulder rather than Central City. That's 2 days in a row where we have taken a wrong turn, so it's either my head cold, or we're just getting tired from traveling so long. It's probably a combination of both.
     Anyhow, we really didn't mind because the ride to Boulder on CO-119N was actually a wonderful ride . Completely downhill following Boulder Creek was full of twists and turns and the scenery was beautiful. Colorado doesn't tend to put North/South markings on their route numbers all the time, so it wasn't until we reached Boulder did we see a CO-119 with a North designation.   In the meantime, Jody was looking for a restroom, so we stopped at the only gas station we saw in Boulder and they didn't have one. We continued into town, but there were no more gas stations or convenience stores, it was looking more downtown business-like. So we made a command decision and turned around for the 20 miles back to Nederland.
    In may have been uncomfortable for Jody, but it was awesome for me as I was able to retrace my ride as quickly as possible up the same mountain we had just come down. there were practically no cars on the road for most of the way and the riding was just awesome! When we reached Nederland, there was a red Goldwing at the same gas station where we stopped. As Jody hopped off the bike, the driver of the other Goldwing was inside the store drinking coffee . When she opened the door, he looked right at her and told her the restroom was over there in the back. He said she just had that look on her face. They turned out to be a very nice couple about our age from Arkansas who had been on the road for the last 6 days. They had just come up from Manitou Springs, so we swapped some riding stories.
     We left Nederland, this time going the right way on CO-119S. This section was every bit as nice as CO-119N, and we followed it all the way to US-6W. We were only on US-6W for 2.4 miles, but in that 2.4 miles were 2 tunnels, a stream, and the road passing through this steep sided gorge. It was all spectacular! The next few roads were the tricky part where we were trying to make the connection on the other side of I-70 to County Road 126S. These were the turns where I was concerned about taking a wrong turn, but these all went off perfectly.
    Once we turned onto County Road 126S, it was a wonderful 2-lane country mountain road through the backwoods of Colorado . It was obviously a favorite motorcycle route as we saw more motorcycles on this road than we did on the Peak to Peak Highway. County Road 126S became CO-67S until we reached the final turn to US-24E and Manitou Springs. It was getting close to 3:00 when we spotted the McDonald's sign. A couple of coffees rejuvenated us.
     One thing we did notice is that we didn't take a lot of pictures on this ride. The scenery was beautiful all the way. There just weren't any really dramatic overlooks that would make us stop and take a picture. Same with the riding, there were some switchbacks, and some rises ad falls to the roadway, but in general, it was just a really relaxing 4th & 5th gear 45 mph to 65 mph ride. The kind that makes you want to keep riding and not stop to take pictures.
     As we pulled into Manitou Springs, we realized that this is one of those really cool towns. It's located just west of Colorado Springs, and has one of those Main Streets that is just fu;ll of shops and galleries. Tomorrow we will be riding the Pikes Peak Cog Railway to the top of Pikes Peak, but when we get back we will need to explore Manitou Springs . We did get to the hotel early enough to ship back our final "excess stuff" package back to Orlando.
     We would have begun exploring Manitou Springs tonight, but it was laundry night. So we walked downtown and ate at the first interesting restaurant we found. It was called the Stagecoach Inn Restaurant & Pub. I just had a burger and Jody had a chicken sandwich. Both were delicious. As we sat in a booth alone in the room, the waiters came in and setup for a party of 14 including 2 children. We were thinking that we had better hurry up and eat before it gets crazy loud in here when a group of 14 Mennonites walked in. All 14 sat around the table, and except for lots of questions about the menu, everyone was quiet and polite. It was a strange, but nice experience.

206.3 miles today
17,489.1 miles total

5.195 gallons today
412.815 gallons total