Off to see more of CO

That night while sitting in the brewery in Gunnison, CO I wondered where I'd head in the morning. I figured that I could stick to the mountains and end up in Durango which would be pretty much in the direction of The Grand Canyon. I starting messing around on Facebook and ended up chatting with Quentin. He asked where I was and after I told him he demanded that I go to ride highway 92 (i think) in The Black Canyon. He stated that this particular ride/road was in his top 5! Well, with advice like that, how could I resist?!! He noted that it was just West of my current local and that if nothing more I should consider making a run up the canyon and turn around once it got flat and straight.
I had a destination for the morning :)

Wednesday, June 23rd
I slept in a little later than I wanted but managed to get up, grab breakfast, load up and hit the road. I checked the map before leaving and noticed that if i took the Black Canyon route, (which I remembered that Tyler had also recommended), I could follow the road around to Highway 50, take that South to the 550 and that would put me directly on the path to Durango - SWEET!
The weather was perfect! It didn't take long for me to run into some more awesome Colorado landscape. I came across this lake with a really neat rock formation in the background.


I made it to The Black Canyon. Damn! Q was right! Awesome road, curvy and empty. Great scenery, deep canyons and Super high vistas. I was certainly worth the extra miles, if any and I urge anyone that goes near to make the drive up the canyon. :)




Unfortunately, that ride up Black Canyon wasn't without drama. At one point, pretty far into it I was riding around a right hand bend when all of a sudden a young girl, about 12 or so, came flying into my lane from a dirt road on the right. She was riding a four-wheeler and hadn't looked my direction to see if any vehicles were approaching. I knew that there wasn't enough time or room for me to turn or get my bike stopped and impact was eminent...
This girl did not have one single bit of protection on, no helmet boots or gloves. As a matter of fact she was wearing shorts, a tank top and flip flops. This was going to end very badly. (Its amazing how much information the human brain can process in times like these. I had so many thoughts go through my mind in what seemed to be less than a second.)
This girl looked just as she was directly in front of me and her eyes shot open like saucers... Then panic set in and she did what her instincts told her - SLAM THE BRAKES! ...and I thought, OH SHIT! (I'll likely escape with some bumps and bruises and likely a damaged bike but this tiny girl with hardly anything on is going to get seriously f@*ked up!
Then, when I was sure that we would hit, she took control and accelerated like a bat out of hell out of my path! My heart was pounding and I don't think that I've ever gotten angry and scared so fast before. I was still breaking to slow down and was able to look back over my shoulder and noticed that she had turned around towards the dirt road. She looked more scared than me and appeared ready to cry. I was going to stop and yell some sense into her when I realized that she had the experience and skills to know what to do with that big-ass 4x4. I reconsidered, took off and left her to review the events by herself... In the end, no one was hurt and it was something that didn't happen but what did happen took place in fractions of seconds.

After Quentin's ride, I started making my way down the "Million Dollar HWY" (550) towards Durango. I stopped in a small town somewhere and found a Mexican restaurant to grab lunch. After eating, I came outside to find the bike that started my motorcycle obsession, an '89/'90 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-7 in the SWEET Green/Blue/White paint schemed that I loved. Check it out!

It was even for sale, but this bike was less than perfect.

I took off yet again and made my way through Ouray, which is a wonderful little town. It reminded me of a little ski village. I wanted to stop and walk around a bit but it started raining right as I was passing through. I was pretty pissed about the rain because the road going out of Ouray was super curvy and looked like fun. Oh well, I'm sure there will be more. Just outside of Ouray, I found these strangely colored mountains... They were in an old mining community. I'm not sure whether the community was there to mine what the mountains had inside them or if the mining caused them to change colors?


I made it to Durango and it sure was hot there... I had hoped for cooler temperatures because I was going to camp for sure! There were two campgrounds listed on my map and they were both very close to the city. I was a little nervous that these would turn out to be the local high school late night party spot but it was getting too late to ride any further. I picked one and headed towards it. I was surprised to find that after passing through some very dense neighborhoods, I ended up on another gravel and dirt road with still a handful of miles to go. After arriving at the spot, my fears went away when I discovered that this campground was very well maintained and was filled with tall trees and natural beauty all around :) It was a nice place to lay my head. I had a little fun with the camera that night ;)