June 23, 2021 Detours can be fun

 

June 23, 2021 

MEOWT!  MEOWT!

Our morning walk was a bike ride.  There is a dirt road right behind us that is actually an easy ride for a bike.   We left before 7 am and it was quite chilly.  The road has mountains on one side, then follows the Arkansas river on the other side.  The scenery is quite intoxicating.  The mountain backdrop against the river is stunning.  We pass a cemetery.  The oldest headstone is from 1874 and is a 5 year old boy.  I saw a few other 1800’s headstones for babies and it actually brought a tear to my eye.  Lots of Strouds and Howards.  Some headstones were recent.  We walked around to make sure I got enough stickers in my shoes and socks, then got back on the bikes and explored a bit more.  We definitely could come back here for more.

Back at Hannah after I picked all the stickers off of me, we readied her for her next journey.  We turned west onto Hwy 50.  It is a beautiful highway through the Alpine country.   We pass through the town of Salida, which is large enough to support a Walmart. 

I see a sign: ‘Motorcyclists – curvy road ahead’.  Ok, should I be offended?  Is the road only curvy for motorcyclists?  Are you warning them or are you telling them to have some fun?  Chances are if a motorcyclist loves the road, the RV’er doesn’t!

 We continue climbing… and climbing… and climbing.  At more than 11,000 feet, we are at the Monarch Mountain ski resort.  The gondolas are taking people up for scenic rides. So many pine trees have been destroyed by the bark beetle.  Here, they have cut the infected trees down to give the healthy trees a better chance of survival.  It is amazing to see bicyclists heading up this steep grade.  Spouse has been amazed at the lack of bugs on our windshield for this entire trip… until today.  It sounded like rain splattering across the windshield.  It wasn’t pretty.  After we were done executing about a million bugs, we had to clean the windshield.

We continue to Gunnison. I have been to Colorado many times during the ski season, and the news frequently has Gunnison as the coldest reported city in the US. It is about 7500 feet and it is a very lively town with lots of restaurants and shops.  It doesn’t feel touristy at all.  We stopped for lunch.  When we came back and opened Hannah to get Rudy, he bolted.  Fortunately Spouse was able to catch his tail and capture him.  He is getting cabin fever big time.  When we get to a new site, he doesn’t even want to wait for us to set up before he goes outside.

As we continue on Hwy 50, we see a sign that the road is closed and only a few cars will be allowed to pass.  Since we have seen this so much, we didn’t think too much of it and continued on.  That is til we were told the road was totally closed and we would have to take hwy 92 as a detour.  That is a 70 mile detour…  Oh well, what else are we doing, right?

We pass the dam at the Blue Mesa reservoir.  One side is the water, the other side is a deep gorge with the river passing through.  It is very scenic.  The road is tiny.  As we wind our way around, we see this enormous butte.  It looks like a fortress.  There is green at its top, then rocky crags, then aspen trees and pines then more rocky crags and so forth.  It presides over the entire valley like it owns it.  The road actually takes you up some of those rocky crags.  We are over 9000 feet once again.  The wild flowers are amazing.  Yellow sunflowers are the most dominant, but purple lupines, and other whites, pinks, oranges and reds pop their heads up.  The sunflowers at this altitude are so much more impressive than sea level sunflowers.  It is definitely slow going so far.

Ultimately, we get over the pass and head into what looks like high desert scrub.  But we can go 65 mph!  As we approach the town of Delta, it is dry.  It is so dry, one would think we are in Nevada.  Not a bit of foliage for about 10 miles before farms come into view and we see a little green against the brown backdrop.

With our detour coming to an end after more than 70 miles of spectacular scenery, we come into Montrose where we hooked up at the Elks Lodge.  Spouse had a few off road excursions in mind.  We talked to the locals…  they offered ideas that would be more suitable…  Oh these delusions of grandeur!