We had a great time visiting our son Marc and his wife Jess. It was such wonderful hospitality.
Wednesday we left Longmont, Colorado and headed in the general direction of Las Cruces, New Mexico via roads that go up into the Rocky Mountains. (The fast way is to just hop onto I-25 and head south...) Marc gave me his Joe Rocket pro motorcycle jacket and is it great!! Thanks Marc!! We had planned a trip through some passes thaat go off I-70, but Marc told us to take route 285 instead, in part because of the recent weather.. We headed off to Boulder and stopped at Performance Cycles for a bulb for Jeannine's motorcycle. Then it was off to Morrison, Co and 285.. and UP into the mountains.. It was cold at 11,000 feet on Wednesday, let me tell you,, and there were some nasty looking clouds up north acting like they wanted to come down and visit us.
Finally we got to South Park, that place made famous by Comedy Central.. We came down from the mountain pass into a beautiful valley going through the town of Grant and toward Fairplay, Co where we pulled into a gas station (maybe the only gas station). Posted on the wall was the South Park High School football schedule for next fall. I asked "Where is South Park?" The answer: "Right here.. It is this valley and it is a region of Park County. We have a high school, middle school, and shops that sell those South Park T-shirts....." I guess the TV show is considered a mixed blessing in the real South Park...
Fairplay is at 9000 feet, and somebody built a small baseball field north of the town at 10,600 feet that they call the "Two Mile High Stadium". I don't know if anybody really plays ball there....
We left Fairplay and headed toward Buena Vista and Johnson Village. These towns are all pretty small....then made a left turn south and headed on 285 toward Salida, Colorado. Route 285 is fairly straight through South Park and through the valley between Johnson Village and Salida. It is really strange going fast (speed limit is 65) down a two lane highway in the Rockies with snow covered peaks all around. I just never thought you would have such straight roads so high in the Rockies.
Salida is a small city with a dozen or more hotels etc. It is definitely the largest town since we left Morrison. The main drag is route 50. We met some people who came down from Denver through the mountain passes via Leadville (our planned route) and they told us about running into snow in the mountains....... Then it seemed that those black clouds we saw up north were getting closer.....
Salida probably got started as a source of salt, just based on its name, but its early claim to fame is the hot springs right in the center of town.. Most of the hotels are "60's modern" and kept up quite nicely. We pulled into the Travel Lodge (argghhh, no Wifi) ...and we just got unpacked when those black clouds arrived.. RAIN...
This morning (Thursday) we woke up to clear blue skies and an incredible vista of snow covered mountain peaks. WOW.. We had breakfast in a local diner and read the local paper.. The front page had an article about the snow restrictions in some of the mountain passes.. hmmmm... There are sure a lot of mountain passes in the Rockies. .. Also, Nestle Corp (of chocolate fame) bought Ruby Spring, which used to be a local trout farm and they are going to use it for their bottled water..
We got a late (ahem, leisurely) start heading south down 285, and soon it turned into another straight as an arrow road for 25 miles at a clip. Then we got onto 17 to take a detour to see the Great Sand Dunes National Park. This was another straight road, arrow straight for about 50 miles and at 8000 ft above sea level.. The sand dunes are just amazing. They are caused mostly by winds, which bring in sand particles from mountains 65 miles away, and which then settle on the east side of the valley, swirling against the west side of the Sangre de Cristo mountains.. These are the highest sand dunes in North America and cover about 300 square miles.. Impressive.... Anyway, even though scientists developed this theory how the winds caused these sand dunes, as a scientist myself, I have my own theory. Specifically, Paul Bunyan did it. End of story.
Tonght we are in Espanosa, New Mexico, and we just finished our first visit to a New Mexican Chinese restaurant ... Ever have Chinese with southwestern spices? Egg drop soup with tomatos and vegetables?? Salsa instead of Duck Sauce??? Very Interesting...and good... The locals really like it. The place was packed...
Harris and Jeannine
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