Road Trip #5 - Day 7, Blue Mesa Reservoir and Black Canyon of the Gunnison

August 25, 2011
Colorado, USA

We spent a restful night at the ABC Motel and had light rain sometime in the night. The morning was cool and clear.

You should have seen Tim's face when I pronounced that today was laundry day. After six days on the road - it was either time to ship our clothes home and buy new ones at Walmart (a viable option) or do laundry (a somewhat more economically viable option). The motel did not have a guest laundry but I had spied a laundromat on the way into town yesterday. Sure, I gave the guy a break when I said he could drop me off at the laundromat while he ran the bike through a car wash and searched for coffee for the thermos. This is how it went. I washed the first load. Tim showed up about the time they were dry. We changed into the clean clothes and washed the second load. Now, we had a fresh start for the rest of the trip.

By the time we were done with our chores, we thought we deserved a good breakfast. And, nothing would do but to have breakfast (OK - Brunch) at the W Cafe downtown Gunnison. Yum! We were delighted to be seated immediately. The place is small and usually packed with a group of people waiting around outside. Last time we had biscuits with our two egg breakfast and they were great. The dinner-plate size pancakes we ordered this morning were as good if not better. We managed to munch our way through the mountain of hash browns and bacon that looked more like strips of ham. I repeat - Yum! As always, the coffee was hot and the wait staff friendly and efficient.

The Ride - just washed - sits outside The W Cafe - Gunnison, CO

This is the two egg breakfast at The W Cafe - downtown Gunnison, CO -- YUM!

We learned from people at the cafe that the bicycle ride had brought over 35,000 people to Gunnison and Salida. Yikes! We are glad we missed that and vowed to continue dodging it. After brunch, we decided to ride Hwy 135 to Crested Butte. If we have ever traveled this stretch of road, or visited Crested Butte, neither one of us could remember it. The ride was great, the morning was fine and the scenery along the nicely maintained road was grand. We decided to ignore the clouds building on the horizon for the time-being. As is our custom, we slowly cruised in and out on the main street of Crested Butte. What a lively, bustling little town - we decided we would come back soon and spend the day, perhaps even a night.

We rode back out on Hwy 135 to Gunnison, made a quick stop at Walmart for camera batteries and then headed west on Hwy 50. The ride around Blue Mesa is always a pleasure, but today the water was still and reflective.

Blue Mesa Reservoir, near Gunnison is Colorado's largest body of water

We chose to ride west today because the bicycle race was somewhere north of us and we did not want to become entangled in the huge crowd we heard were following it. The north rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison is not heavily traveled. Hwy 92 is one of our favorite rides. It is about 70 miles from the west end of Blue Mesa Reservoir to Hotchkiss, CO and on a good day this is an awesome ride. The walls and cliffs of the Black Canyon drop about 2000 feet in some places. We could not see as much today because we were riding in the lane farthest from the rim of the canyon and because the weather had rapidly deteriorated.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison - CO -- Tim says, we need to get our rain gear on and get the heck off of the rim drive of the canyon... I agreed.

Solid shafts of rain were moving across the canyon faster than we could drive the twisting, turning, climbing road. We stopped at a pull off near the summit of the road, pulled on our rain gear once again and wasted no time getting off the rim of the canyon. Storm clouds chased us all the way up Hwy 92 and across Hwy 133 into Delta. We have been stuck in Delta before because of rain. I told Tim it was not going to hurt my feelings if he shot the gap up Hwy 50 into Grand Junction.

We rolled into Grand Junction and after driving in the evening commute a little too close to downtown for a few minutes, decided to ride to a part of town that was more familiar. We checked into the Affordable Inn on Horizon Drive. We've stayed in this area before although this was the first time at this particular motel. We secured a room on the ground floor, unpacked and covered The Ride. The room is nice enough, decorated in country folk art style complete with quilts instead of bedspreads and a John Sliney (American Folk Artist) patriotic print on the wall. I'm still trying to figure out how to bring it home with me - ha! The room is a little shabby from normal wear and tear I suppose, but very clean. As we strolled down the street, looking for supper, we were peppered with light rain. Thunder rumbled in the distance. The clouds had caught up.

We found ourselves seated in the Applebee's not far from the motel, ordering beer and one of the two for $20 meals. We briefly discussed the day's adventure and turned our thoughts to how we would entertain ourselves tomorrow...

Here is a slide show of the day's ride (76 photos):

Today's mileage = 211.5 miles