Colorado Trip Day 5 – Durango to Fruita (near Grand Junction, CO) Day 5!!! What happened to the other days??? Well, it’s time to get caught up. Day 1 Thursday August 16th – Dallas to Amarillo, TX. Worked a half day today before heading out on the road. Met Sean and Brian at Sean’s house. We hit the road about 2:15. It looked like it was going to rain and that we would drive through it, so we put on our rain gear…it never rained. It was an unseasonably cool day for August, but we didn’t complain. Temp stayed in the low 80’s. We stopped by the Big Texan to eat and no, I did not take the 72 oz steak challenge. Drove 368 miles today. Day 2 Friday August 17th – Amarillo, TX. to Colorado Springs. Another day of not seeing much (if you have been to the panhandle of Texas or eastern Colorado, you know what I am talking about). Started off cool this morning about 65 degrees. Heard thunder during the night, but not a drop of rain. Took a different route this time. We went all the way up Hwy 287 to Lamar, CO, then west to Pueblo and up to Colorado Springs. Even though it started cool, it warmed up to the low 90’s. We met my friends Rod and Brook from Denver and now the whole group it ready to go. Drove 396 miles today for a total of 764 miles. Day 3 Saturday August 18th – Colorado Springs to Durango, CO. This was a great day, but long. We knew that going into it. Started off taking the COG Railway trip to the top of Pikes Peak at 14,110 ft (4,302 m for my “down under” family) on a 3 hour round trip. It was a beautiful ride on the train. It was clear and calm at the peak. It is unusual for it to not be windy up there. There was also a running race up one of the trails from Manitou Springs to the top. It was hard for this “flatlander” to even walk up there much less run!!! By the time we got off the mountain and had lunch, it was after 2:00 PM before we headed to Durango which was about 6 hours of driving, not including stops. We rolled into Durango, had dinner downtown, then headed to the rental house we had for 2 nights. It was gorgeous, nestled back into a hillside (see picture of the front yard). By the time we got settled in, it was midnight. Drove 318 miles today for a total of 1084 miles. Day 4 Sunday August 19th – Durango to Mesa Verde, CO and back. Today was a short riding day, but a long day overall. We got started a bit later than I like and went to breakfast at a popular Durango place. We waited almost an hour to be seated and then spent almost an hour having breakfast. We didn’t hit the road until about 11:30 to head out to Mesa Verde. It was only 50 miles out to the park and we stopped to see a bear on the way. We didn’t get any good pictures, but got within about 20 feet of it (it was on the other side of a fence, but I was ready to run, remember, they will catch the slowest one and that wasn’t going to be me!!! Mesa Verde is awesome. It is full of old Indian Cliff Dwellings. We took 2 of the paid tours with Park Rangers. Both tours were small (12 people versus the normal 50-60). That was nice since we had more time to explore and ask the Ranger questions about the people and the dwellings. The park is huge. It was only 50 miles from Durango to Mesa Verde, but we drove 60 miles within the park from one cliff dwelling to the other. After about 5 hours of tours and driving within the park, we headed back to Durango. Drove 160 miles today for a total of 1244 miles. Day 5 Monday August 20th (Finally!!!!)– Durango to Fruita, CO. Fruita is just west of Grand Junction and is just a “wide spot in the road” as they say. Today was a beautiful drive even though it was overcast and threatened to rain the first half of the day. Started out about 50 degrees and got up to 95 by the time we reached Fruita. The 50’s and 60’s were in the mountains. We went up the “Million Dollar Highway” today which is a stretch from Silverton to Ouray, CO (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_550). It is an amazing and beautiful stretch of road. We went over three mountain passes (Coal Bank Pass, elevation 10,640 ft/3,240 m, Molas Pass, elevation 10,970 ft/3,340 m and Red Mountain Pass, elevation 11,018 ft/3,358 m. We stopped in Ouray which advertises itself as the “Switzerland of America”. We had lunch as a group, then Sean and Brian headed back south to get back to Texas while Rod, Brook and myself headed north to continue our trip. Drove 189 miles today for a total of 1433 miles.