Colorado, USA
It is gonna get warm here today. Our whole summer in Northern Colorado has been far warmer than we are accustomed to, but I am not complaining (well maybe just a little bit) because I know my Texas/Oklahoma friends and family have been sweltering under triple digits for weeks now.
Tim turned west on Hwy 34 and said let's go to Glen Haven for coffee. I replied that it sounded like a good idea to me. We gave a nod to The Chief as we went by and honked as we rolled by Beavers Den Leathers. We rode Hwy 34 through Big Thompson Canyon turning northwest onto scenic CO Rd 43 at the fork in the road near Drake CO. CO 43 is also known as Devil's Gulch Road and if followed to its end the road will junction with Hwy 34/36 in Estes Park where one may choose to ride into the city or travel toward Rocky Mountain National Park. Glen Haven is eight miles from Drake along this road.
We took our time but it was not long before we had rolled to a stop in front of the Glen Haven General Store. The place was doing a brisk business. A row of motorcycles were parked out front and bicycles were parked beside the building. The line was out the door. As we saw a few people exiting we understood why - in their hands were giant cinnamon rolls! Oh boy!
What a pleasant surprise! The cinnamon rolls were fresh baked, giant-size, reasonably priced and very tasty!
After enjoying our rolls and coffee we chose to ride back to Hwy 34 rather than continue on to Estes Park via Devil's Gulch Road. At the junction of Hwy 34, we decided to turn west and up anyway. Ha! We made our customary stop at the rest area in Estes Park and looked for fish in the water from the bridge. I am fairly certain Tim looks for fish in the toilet bowl - hahaha! Yep, we saw them - lots of little brown trout. We continued on the peak-to-peak highway (Hwy 7) and despite the look of the clouds turned toward Nederland (Hwy 72).
There is road construction on Hwy 72 (loose gravel and oil). At least, they called it road construction on the signs. Really all we could tell they have done is top it and make it look pretty and by doing so have disguised the defects and road damage. For shame! Such a waste of tax dollars.
The skies got even more interesting as we covered the last few miles to Nederland. They spit on us here and there and it had just come a decent shower as there were puddles beside the road. Nederland was jammed pack with people and it appeared some sort of festival was in full swing so traffic was crazier than usual. With an eye to the skies and indulging our natural aversion to crowds we decided to ride out of there choosing Boulder Canyon as our exit strategy (CO Hwy 119). We traveled Boulder Canyon often in a car when we lived in the western suburbs of Denver but this is the first time we have ridden it on a motorcycle. Other than being as busy if not busier than we remembered it - we enjoyed the ride down. (Between dark skies, drizzle and me bobbling the camera, the pics of Boulder Canyon did not turn out as well as I would have liked. I did shoot some video so I might have salvaged a bit of the ride. We will see when I get around to editing video clips. Worse case scenario - oh dear - we might have to take another ride through the canyon.)
There is a falls in Boulder Canyon but I missed getting a pic of it. We laughed as we got to the end of the canyon because there was standing room only in Boulder Creek, apopular spot for tubing and other sorts of water hijinx.
The skies were threatening as we exited the canyon and as usual we got the heck out of Boulder as fast as we could. We put that storm in our rear view mirror only to ride up on another one and another one. We stopped for an overdue stretch and a bottle of water at the city park in tiny Mead CO. Then we finally brought our hot bodies home.
Today's ride = 181.2 miles
Slide show of today's ride (98 photos):
Alternate link to this slide show
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