Welcome Hunters!

For the last couple of weeks, Les and I have noticed a lot of “Welcome Hunters” signs in many of the towns that we’ve been in. It’s apparent that the hunters are good for the local economies. We pulled into the little town of Cedaredge after being in Grand Mesa National Park and we both almost fell off the bike when we saw a huge “Welcome Hunters” sign plastered on the side of the local church! Do you suppose that the hunters stop in on Sunday mornings to pray for divine intervention?

We have seen the most amazing scenery that we keep thinking that it can’t possibly get any better, but it does. We drove from I-70 south at Glenwood Springs on Highway 133 and saw the most amazing scenery. We really have arrived here at the perfect time for fall colors.

We spent one night in Montrose so that we could ride the Black Canyon of the Gunnison area. Again, amazing!

It was finally time to take a day for coach maintenance, so we’ve spent the last couple of days in Ouray (you-ray). We spent a whole day of cleaning and laundry and another day touring the Telluride area. The weather has been holding out well for us, however it was rainy the day we arrived, dusting the mountains with snow, and the temperate dropped to 36 overnight. Brrr....

Above our campground in Ouray.

Les & I drove the truck to Telluride, so we were able to drive up the road to the base of the falls. Yeah!
Can you see the house at the top of the falls? A family does live here, but they have to drive up a 4-wheel drive road part-way and then take a gondola to the top. There is a generator at the top of the falls that provides a lot of power to the town of Telluride.

Bridal Veil Falls.

Looking back down into Telluride.

A smaller waterfall.

Part of the San Juan Range, southwest of Telluride.

Next stop, Durango!

Glenwood Canyon

I took all of these pictures off of the back of the bike today on I-70 at Glenwood Canyon (near Aspen). Wow! Isn't this canyon amazing!

Colorado!

We found a nice park, Boyd’s Lake State Park outside of Fort Collins/Loveland Colorado and have decided to stay here for a few days and tour the area.

We rode the bike up Highway 34 (Big Thompson River Canyon) into Rocky Mountain National park and the town of Estes Park. I had never thought about it before but it’s called The Rocky Mountains because the mountains are ‘rocky’. Well, Duh! We easily found Mall Road and took a couple of pictures of the house we think was Wayne’s family home, overlooking Estes lake.

The Mall Place in Estes Park?

Beautiful Estes Park

I spotted these beautiful white buildings on the hill overlooking Estes Park. It’s called “The Stanley” and is a resort that was built in 1909 by F.O. Stanley, one of the brothers who invented the Stanley Steamer. It’s also where Stephen King was inspired to write “The Shining”.

"The Stanley"

Lester & the Stanley Steamer

Out of Estes...

We spent the next day in Fort Collins. It’s easy to see why the Hoffman family loved living here. It’s a very cool college town with a wonderful old town and main street.

We even drove by Korin’s childhood home on our way to the New Belgium Brewing Company where Fat Tire beer is made. This was a really fun tour and we learned a lot about the company. When an employee has worked there for one year they’re given a fat tire bike (which many of them ride to work). They also become owners, as the brewery is privately held and employee owned. The plant is 100% wind powered and they even recycle their own wastewater and the resultant methane gas provides 15% of their energy needs.

The Hoffman Place in Fort Collins

On to the town of Golden Colorado where Coors is King! It’s a huge plant; the world’s largest on a single site. Above the campground where we’re staying in town is Lookout Mountain where Buffalo Bill is buried (according to his wishes). Compared to the wonderful museum in Cody, this is a very tacky grave site for such an important guy.

Lookout Mountain looking West

Lookout Mtn. towards Denver

Looking down on the town of Golden & the Coors plant

We’ve done a number of motorcycle rides in and around the Roosevelt National Forest and The Rocky Mountains. Today we made Boulder part of our route. We’re finding that Colorado is a really beautiful state.

Riding into the storm...

We’ve had a bit of rain and the aspen’s are starting to turn colors in the upper elevations. It's also a bit chilly at the upper elevations.

Tomorrow ~ off to Vail.

Buffalo Bill Cody ~ American Icon

We made our way into Cody and spent 3 nights while we waited out a bit of rain. What a neat town. Literally. It was very neat and tidy. The town was founded and designed by Buffalo Bill and he wanted the main street to be big enough to run his Wild West show down the main street. Considering that his troupe was about 600 strong, they’d need a pretty wide street! The best part was the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. It’s really 5 museums under one roof; the Buffalo Bill museum, the Whitney Gallery of Western Art, the Plains Indian museum, the Cody Firearms museum and the Draper Natural History museum. A $15 ticket will get you in for 2 consecutive days. We spent about 3 hours each day and I still only saw the Buffalo Bill, the Art and the Natural History! Les skipped the Art and did the Firearms. The original BB museum was started in 1927 by his niece; 10 years after Cody died. It is amazing how much of his memorabilia they’ve retained. The whole thing is so well done that it was reminiscent of a Smithsonian. Don’t miss this if you’re ever near Cody! http://www.bbhc.org/museums/index.cfm

One evening we stopped in Buffalo Bills’ “Irma Hotel” for a cocktail. While there we meet a fun couple, Tony & Lin, from Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, England. Famous for Pork Pie, Stilton Cheese and Robin Hood! http://www.melton.co.uk/ I was inspired by their adventuresome spirit! One day Lin told Tony that she’d found a great airfare special to Denver and the next week they were here. Once here, they rented a car and just started driving wherever the spirit took them. They didn’t even make hotel reservations! Not the first time they’ve done this! Can you imagine doing that with a flight to England?

The Irma has a beautiful old bar that was gift to BB from Queen Victoria as a thank-you for him bringing his Wild West show to England. At the time the bar was estimated to be valued at $100,000. It was shipped over by boat and then cross country by rail and then buckboard. It’s amazing that it even survived. The show toured Europe for 4 years.

We’re starting to feel the push of the weather to head south to Colorado, so we beeline south to Casper. We had planned to stay at the Wal-Mart but on arrival we encountered the “No Overnight RV Parking” signs. Bummer. Its late afternoon, but we jump in the truck and drive around to the 2 RV parks on our Woodall’s list. Yuk! The first one was a nasty little gravel park filled with permanent trailers. We drive all the way across town to the second park which is full! After about an hour we’re back to the Super Wal-Mart where Les decides to defy the law and stay anyway. He talks to a couple of Wal-Mart employees who insure him that no one has ever been kicked out, to their knowledge. Another RV joins us and we were rewarded with a lovely sunset…

Today I made my first attempt to drive the coach! We were on this very straight, very lonely stretch of road in southern Wyoming and I brazenly said “hey honey, why don’t you let me drive”. Yikes! What was I thinking?? He quickly pulled over and said “help yourself”! I was able to white knuckle it down the road for 20 miles and thought that it was enough courage for one day. Kudos to Les for all the miles he’s driven.

We made our way into Colorado, through Fort Collins (right through town with our monster coach) and have landed here in Boyd’s Lake State Park and plan to stay here for a few days while we explore the area. We met some fun folks at the campground tonight and they invited us to share their yummy freshly caught fried catfish. They had run out of TP so we gladly provided a roll!

Charles, Sheila, Dale & Terry!

Tomorrow Estes Park!

The End of the Rainbow

Now that the holiday weekend is over, we’re finally able to get into a campground in Glacier. All the campgrounds in the park were officially closed on September 4th, except one called Apgar.

We took our motorcycle trip around the Going-to-the-Sun road. It’s an interesting road that was completed in 1932 and cuts through the middle of the park. Glacier is actually Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park; it’s a combined effort with Canada. We packed a lunch in our saddle bags (some of the wonderful smoked salmon that we’d bought off the back of some guys’ truck in Puget Sound) and rode 135 miles that day. It took us about 5 hours to complete the circle, from West Glacier to East Glacier and back around. The last hour was really windy and I was ready to get off when we finally got back to camp.

Bighorn sheep near East Glacier.

The next day, we took a shorter ride (70 miles) to Whitefish for lunch. It’s another really nice town with another beautiful lake. It seems there’s a lake around every corner in Montana.

Can you see the ski area above Whitefish lake?

Les thought it would be fun to park in front of the "No Parking" sign at Hungry Horse Dam, on our ride back from Whitefish.

Driving south to Missoula, we drove by Flathead Lake, which is the largest lake west of the Rockies. Its 28 miles long and 15 miles wide! All of these lakes have private property along their shore, with some really nice houses with lawns that go right down to the water. Beautiful!

Our mail finally caught up with us in Missoula! It’s a months worth of mail and what a pile it was, even without any catalogs. It took me a couple of days to get through it.

We’ve been traveling the back roads from Missoula through Helena (Hwy 12) and down to Billings. There are more people in the Bay Area than in the whole state of Montana.

Tonight we’re in the Billings Super Wal-Mart (bless you Sam Walton), experiencing a thunderstorm and tomorrow we’ll head south into Wyoming. Going to Cody!

The End of the Rainbow!