Colorado Cruiser: Day ride to Lake City

Thursday June 5th, 2014

I spent much of the early morning writing travel blogs because I'm so far behind. Angela offered to make pancakes so I could keep writing. I had to ask allot of questions to remember everything that we've done. Getting old sucks, but that's part of why I write these blogs, so I can remember all the good times. Just a few minutes reading my old blogs and the memories and great feelings flood back.

The plan for today is to ride to Lake City and back. Nannette surprised us again by saying she wanted to ride part of the way. But she wanted to ride up onto Wolf Creek Pass with Angela driving the car, then Nan would take the car and drive back to the timeshare. She wants a down day, and that's ok.
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So we prepped the bikes and headed North toward Wolf Creek Pass.

Nan and I were listening to songs from my iPhone as we rode and talked. Nan likes to sing with the songs and I enjoy listening to her. But the music kept cutting off. I could get it to play again but unplugging the cable from the iPhone and plugging it back in. It would play a few minutes then stop again. It was driving us crazy. Finally I gave up and left it off.

The drive up to the Wolf Creek overlook is beautiful and once again, the temperature was great. It was in the mid 70s and felt great.

I was disappointed when we arrived because it meant this part of the ride was over. Nan and I got off the bike and stripped off our gear.

Angela parked the Highlander and walked over to us. The first words out of her mouth were "Your stereo is really messed up. It kept switching songs for no reason." and suddenly I knew what had been happening to my and Nannette's music. We'd get close enough to the Highlander for my iPhone to connect to the stereo via Bluetooth, then I'd unplug and plug it in which would break the connection. We had a good laugh about all of us being frustrated by the same problem in 2 different vehicles.

We took pictures, then Nan got in the car and headed back to Pagosa Springs.

John, Angela, and I kept riding towards South Fork, Creede, and ultimately Lake City.

We stopped for pictures on an old wooden bridge, then stopped for gas and a drink in South Fork.

From South Fork we turned onto a highway that has very little traffic. We rode beside the Rio Grande river (the same one that eventually gets to Texas/Mexico) and headed towards the headwaters of the river.

About 20 miles from South Fork we arrived at the town of Creede. Just before we arrived, John suddenly started swerving and slowed way down. After a few seconds he stopped the bike completely and Angela hopped off quickly. John started scrabbling at his leg and said he'd been stung by something and it was killing him. He pulled his pant leg up to reveal a small red dot that was obviously some sort of sting. We didn't really have anything to put on it except some hand sanitizer. Within a few minutes the pain reduced greatly and we continued the ride.

We still don't know what it was. Maybe it was a bumble hit bee that was retaliating for all the bees John and I have hit on these rides. Ever time we stop, there are masses of black and yellow bodies all over both bikes. We'll never know.

Usually when I pass through Creede it's as fast as the speed limit allows. I only stop if I need gas. But this time John slowed and turned up a street I hadn't ever noticed before. It turns out that Creede has a downtown that I never knew about. We passed many restaurants and shops, and allot of motorcycles parked along the streets. I had no idea that Creede was this popular.

We kept riding all the way through town and eventually we stopped in front of a cave that is also the town's fire station. Really. The fire station is inside a cave. John said he's toured it before and they have the trucks and everything inside. All we could do was take pictures out front.

We left Creed and continued toward Lake City.

The road meanders through valleys along the Rio Grande for a long way, then abruptly starts climbing away from the river. We wound through trees and small meadows, always climbing.

We had decided earlier to ride non-stop to Lake City, then catch the scenic turnouts on our way back. That's usually a euphemism for "we're not going to stop".

Eventually we reached Slumgullion Summit and began descending toward Lake City. The road wound steeply down and around the side of the mountain. After about 5 minutes of descent we caught up to a group of 3 Harleys. They were going very slow, much slower than the road warranted. John figures the last rider was a very new rider because he held his brakes all the way through every turn and weaved back and forth through the turns. I just hoped John didn't notice my rather wavery line through my own turns.

We reached a long straight away and zipped past the bikers. The whole descent took allot longer than I expected. We kept reaching what looked to be level ground, only to go around a corner and see another long, steep section of road. Eventually we reached the bottom and Lake City.

We turned off the main road and cruised down a side road trying to decide where to eat. Eventually we settled on Southern Vittles. We sat out on the front porch of the restaurant and ate our lunch. We all picked BBQ of some sort. John and Angela have had burgers for several days in a row and they've all been disappointing. These sandwiches were all good.

As we ate, Angela read to us from the history of Alfred Packer, otherwise known as the canibal of Lake City. Apparently he accidentally ate his 5 companions during a mid winter trip long ago. There is a hotel in town almost entirely dedicated to him. After lunch, Angela walked over to the museum, but it was closed.

We finished lunch and started our ride back toward Pagosa Springs. About half way back up the mountain we did pull over and ride up Windy Point Overlook. There was a beautiful view so I took a couple of pictures.

We chatted with a few other people who had stopped. One guy was on an old 90's Travel Glide Harley. He was on a day ride from Montrose Colorado and was just about to start his return journey.

Back on the road, we passed several other scenic turnouts. John swerved into a couple but only slowed for a quick look and continued on. I stopped for a few quick pictures, then followed on.

The ride back was pretty but not much different than the ride out. We reached the timeshare by about 5:30.

Nannette had bought a few things for us to cook for dinner. I cooked teriyaki chicken, rice, and vegetables. We ate and talked about what was going to happen tomorrow.

John and Angel decided that they needed to head for home. John's dad and son need him for some things on Saturday, so they were going to leave early. We played Apples to Apples until we were all starting to yawn.

Posing on the Wolf Creek Pass Overlook