Independence Ride Day 4

July 5, 2009
Fort Collins, CO

Hot Air Balloon Launch - Gunnison, CO

We thought ourselves lucky to have procured a room in the hotel across the street from the fireworks celebration yesterday. We had a great time last night. This morning's balloon launch made our overnight stay in Gunnison, Colorado one we will remember for a very long time.

We've never seen a balloon launch up close... so we were up, breakfasted early and in the park as the first of the balloons were getting up in the air. I think my favorite was the alien... There was barely a breath of wind, so the balloons went up and drifted slowly down onto parking lots, the college campus and even the side of the road. I made the pics into a movie - enjoy!

Balloon Launch – Gunnison, CO - July 5, 2009

Gunnison to Salida over Monarch Pass
We spoke with a retired military veteran/retired police officer as we were packing the bike. He stopped Tim and pointing to The Ride asked what a rig like that cost these days. We get that question often. The vet and his wife rode years ago until she had some sort of a seizure while riding. She hasn't ridden since. He had a great shirt on that simply said Respect Our Constitution which sparked a lively conversation for a few minutes.

We checked out of the hotel about mid-morning, having thoroughly enjoyed the balloon launch and somewhat reluctantly started our ride home. The road to Salida out of Gunnison took us over Monarch Pass (elevation 11,312) which brightened our spirits. Yay! At the summit, we stopped at the Visitor Center. We spoke with several bikers from all over the states, most of whom were exclaiming - it's cold! It was chilly. We had stopped about halfway up and added hoodies to our clothing layers. One biker on a Shadow I think was from Nevada and was carrying camping gear. He was riding to and hiking the glaciers in the state. Interesting fellow! Other bikers were passing through from California, New Mexico and Florida. Several others rode on by and waved. We had a cup of coffee, browsed the store, made a wardrobe adjustment (lace on my chaps loosened) and bought Monarch Pass patches and pins for our vests.

Buena Vista to Leadville
We began our descent from the pass about 10 am, riding on through the edge of Poncha Springs and it wasn't long before we rolled into busy Buena Vista where we stopped for gas and a stretch and coffee, of course. Then we dared to ride into what looked like a pretty good storm brewing on the road to Leadville. Hindsight says we should have suited up in Buena Vista or altered our course. Ha! We were only a few miles down the road before it started to rain... hard... and about a mile further on we were pulled off the side of the road with a few other soggy bikers dragging out the rain suits. It was a sloppy ride most of the way into (I should say up to) Leadville (elevation 10,200) and cold. Normally, we would stop in Leadville, as it is one of our favorite places. It is fun to stroll the streets of downtown and there's some great history in Leadville including a tour of Baby Doe's mine and shack. As the clouds were looking rather ominous all around, we decided to get over Fremont Pass and around Copper Mountain before the weather got worse (wetter). We have camped on Turquoise Lake at Leadville many times and know the weather can get nasty in a matter of minutes. Fremont Pass (elevation 11,318) is a great ride in fair weather. Today it was damn cold. We were surprised at how much snow was still on the ground. Of course, it didn't help that we were already damp.

By the time we had ridden about 30 miles and made it over Fremont pass and to I-70 we were ready to thaw out. We stopped at a convenience store at the junction of I-70 and Hwy 91 for coffee and a cookie. We stripped out of our rain suits which have been officially christened. The weather was warm and the skies only partly cloudy so we put the rain suits away. Before leaving, we called Texas and left a birthday message for our grandson, Chevy. Today Chevy is 13.

I-70 (no, not quite the plan) and Home
Now, we know better than to even contemplate traveling I-70 east on a Sunday and especially not on a holiday weekend. But, we only wanted to travel on it far enough to reach Hwy 40 so we could ride north to Winter Park and Granby and take a wide circuitous route home. The traffic seemed to be flowing fairly well, so we chanced it. Hindsight, that rascal, says we should have got off at Silverthorne because the traffic went to hell just after that. And, we spent the rest of the afternoon in bumper-to-bumper, stop-and-go traffic.

By the time we got to the Hwy 40 cutoff, it was too late to head off in that direction and the clouds were not cooperating. If anything, they looked worse in that direction. We were thinking as we rode up on the Johnson Tunnel (the other side of the Eisenhower Tunnel), that we'd ride to Idaho Springs, get off the interstate and ride the canyon into Golden and home. It started raining just before Idaho Springs. That ruled the canyon out.

Johnson Tunnel – I-70 Eastbound - Colorado July 5, 2009

Vickie's Hindsight said get off at Idaho Springs, have pizza and wait it out. Tim's Hindsight, would have said that too if he was listening. But no... after being nearly blinded by goggles fogging up, rain and back splash, and small hail pelting him in the face (I say what are you doing. He says I can't see. I say what the hell do you mean you can't see!), Tim took the Evergreen exit, where we rolled into a gas station, filled up and spent about an hour drying hair, gloves, and what all out in a Burger King. We had some bad coffee and cardboard pie. We weren't the only ones sheltering from the storm there, but we could have won the wet t-shirt contest had there been one. Once on I-70, there was no place to pull over and put the rain suits on again, so we were soaked through three layers.

We finally had an encouraging break in the clouds and we rode our favorite route home, through Golden and Boulder. As we rolled through the edge of Longmont, we came upon a stretch of road about a mile long where hail had piled up like snow. From the look of the clouds hanging low and threatening over the entire length of the Rockies, the route we had thought about earlier in the day would not have been a good choice either...

Oh well! We had three really great days out of four and the fourth wasn't all that bad - it just turned out different than we thought it would be. There are no photos after riding up on the traffic jam. The camera was put away quick as it began to rain.

What a great Colorado weekend! Four days riding roads we didn't want to end (well, maybe we wanted to see the end of I-70 - ha!). Our ride today was 276 miles bringing the total for this trip to 1380 miles. We discovered some new favorite places and can't wait until we're rolling out of the drive again in search of others.