Colorado Cruiser: Fall Colors Ride Day 2

The morning of our big ride had a cold bite in the air. As we left Durango heading North, we were parallel to the Durango Silverton train tracks, and after a few minutes, we saw the train ahead of us. I snapped a couple of shots as we passed, then we sped up a bit to get ahead of it and take some more photos. None of mine turned out, but it was cool to stand right by the tracks and feel the rumble as the train roared past.

The road started climbing and soon we could see the aspen forests. I've known that aspens are all connected through the root system, but a guy we met told me that because they are all connected, they all change colors at the same time. The guy also said that aspens just turn yellow. They don't turn red, so any deep orange or red you see is some other sort of tree like an oak. I'm not sure it's all true, but it was cool to see the patterns of yellow all through the evergreens.

We stopped many times to take pictures of mountains covered with fall colors, or dramatic shadows from clouds. I took allot of pictures. I only uploaded about half, and I'm only showing you 1 out of every 5 here. It's hard picking just the best of the best to show because so many show different things that it's hard to only pick a few.

Eventually we rode into Silverton. I've only ever been to Silverton in the middle of winter when 90% of the town is shut down and boarded up. This was the very end of the season. Most shops had sale signs in the windows, and one guy we talked to said he would have everything sold by 5pm and be on his way back to Phoenix by the end of the day. We went to a leather shop and John bought a great jacket for pretty cheap.

From Silverton the road climbs way up into the mountains over the Million Dollar Highway. The scenery gets even more dramatic, and because it was later in the day, the clouds were gathering casting shadows and making dramatic contrasts in addition to all the colors.

Eventually we got enough riding in between all the stops and ogling to make it to Ouray. Ouray is probably my favorite little town of all time. It feels like I'd imagine a town in the swiss alps would feel, all nestled in the midst of these huge peaks. One year my son Kyle and I took a road trip and came into Ouray right as the sun was going down. The red glow of the sunset was bouncing off of the rock cliff faces and cast the whole town in a beautiful pink color.

There was no pink today, but the town was full of motorcycles. In fact, we've seen hundreds of motorcycles since leaving Durango. The San Juan Skyway is one of the top motorcycle rides in most lists. It sure makes my top 10 list.

We stopped at a place called Maggie's kitchen for burgers. Neither of us felt like spending $30 for a meal, but that's what most of the other restaurants charge there. Hey, I said it was a beautiful town, not that it was cheap.

By the time we finished lunch, the clouds were really gathering over the mountains. We rode North to Ridgway up a fairly flat road, then turned West.

This is near John's favorite place in the world. 2 years ago he got a flat tire which took 5 hours to repair, then last year he blew the battery charger on his bike which caused several hours of delay and a friend had to ride 100 miles to get him a new one. I think John held his breath all the way from Ridgway to Telluride.

As we got near the junction to turn South, the rain finally started coming down. BIG HUGE DROPS started pelting us and within seconds it was a whole sheet of water. But it only lasted about 2 minutes, then reduced to a trickle, and finally stopped just as we rode into the outskirts of Telluride. We stopped to take a few pictures, especially of the old general store.

We rode into the town and decided to take a break from riding. There is a free gondola ride that takes you up over the ski slopes and down to another part of Telluride. It was nice to get out of the sprinkles, but we didn't have to clear views that we'd hoped to get. On the far side was allot of shopping, but since we didn't have wives with us, we decided to forgo the shops and just rode the gondola back.

Once we left Telluride we were in "get home" mode. We stopped much less often and rode just a tiny bit faster. We still saw some beautiful foliage and a big lake. We stopped for a photo at Lizard Head Pass, then we really got serious about getting back to the hotel.

It's hard to describe how great the whole ride was, and how beautiful it all was. It's just something you have to do for yourself sometime.

If I can possibly help it, I'm going to do this ride again next year.

Riding North out of Durango