Our ride to Silverton and Ouray, Colorado...

Monday, August 1, 2016

Moved from Cortez, CO to Durango, CO for 2 reasons.  1^st, Annie still had to see the Vet in Durango.  2^nd, we wanted to ride the Million Dollar Highway to Silverton then on to Ouray.

Got settled into our new park, Alpen Rose RV Park by 2pm. 

 

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Well…we left the rig at 9:15 am to ride the Million Dollar Highway. 

Before I go any further you have to know that I have only ridden in Florida…it’s very, very flat!  Very flat!  We have to look hard to find a road with curves and rarely find hills let alone mountains.

Anyway, we got to Silverton at 11:15 am.  It was only 41 miles but it took us 2 hours!  Parts of this road were terrifying!!  No shoulders on some parts and NO GUARDRAILS…ON SWITCHBACKS, some were double switchbacks!!!!  I mean to tell you…when you looked down…you couldn’t see the bottom. 

Georgie decided he would pull over at an overlook…on a huge incline…on a curve!  I just kept on going!  Again…are you f***ing kidding me?  I pulled over about ¾ of a mile further…where it was a little more level.  He caught up.  He said, “What the hell!  I thought you’d want to take some pictures.”  “NOT THERE!” I said.  Maybe on the way back…where the overlooks where on the side where there were mountains…not humongous cliffs.

When we stopped in Silverton, Georgie said to me, “did you see blah, blah, blah?” 

“Are you f***ing kidding me!  I kept my eyes straight ahead!  I wasn’t looking at anything but the road on those curves!”

We walked around Silverton for about an hour.  Picked up a couple of Harley shirts then back on the bikes to head on up to Ouray, another 25 miles north…on the same road…with more switchbacks…double switchbacks…a lot of them!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We didn’t even stop in Ouray.  We just turned around to head back…because the sky was black as coal…it was going to rain.  Georgie wanted to stop, I said no way!  And get caught in the rain, on this road…with all the switchbacks…and no guardrails!

I’ll bet if I said it once I said it a hundred times on the way up…to myself but out loud…HOLY F***!!!

It wasn’t as bad going back. We got back to Silverton without hitting rain.  We stopped for gas.  Talked to a few people on bikes going both directions.  They asked how it was.  Good thing they talked more to Georgie than me.  I did say it wasn’t bad coming back.

We left Silverton and headed home.  The sky was still very black.  Georgie, as usual, said we’d be fine.  The rain was behind us.  WRONG!  It started raining, a little, about 20 minutes in.  Not too bad.  Well…it just got worse and worse.  It was howling and very cold!  I worked out ok for me though.  I was more worried about just seeing the road rather than the curves…or the speed limit.  It felt like sleet hitting our faces.  I was sure I would have bruises on my face.  I didn’t.

We were about 23 miles from home when George pulls over on the shoulder.  It’s still raining mind you.    As we’re riding at 60 mph his bike shuts off.   He got it running in about 5 minutes and it ran fine.  Never did figure it out.

It finally stopped raining about 15 miles from home.  The sun came out and dried our jeans.  Now they were clean I thought.  Good thing we had our leather jackets on ‘cause it was really cold riding, not to mention the freezing cold rain. 
 

 
 
I kept thinking, if I could ride this road, especially in this kind of weather, I could ride any road!  Bring it on!!