Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Day 14... The Last of the Mountains

We pulled out of Cortez around 9:00 after checking the weather on the computer. It looked like we'd be following behind a rain storm, and riding between more rain on each side. The plan worked good. We saw a number of west bound riders in rain gear, and there were some wet roads, but no rain for us.

Between Pagosa Springs and Del Norte, US-160 crosses the continental divide at Wolf Creek Pass. According to my GPS, the elevation was 10,863'(3311m). Just prior to that, I had an opportunity to met one of Colorado State Patrol's finest. I had fallen behind in a double set of switch backs and was pushing it a bit to catch up to John when Trooper Fenwick turned around to introduce himself to me. We had a nice talk about speed and safety. I left the meeting without having to contribute any money to the state of Colorado. That was a good thing!

A few pictures from today.
How ironic is this.... a shot of the XM radio near the Wolf Creek Pass..

At the top.

Near where I meet Trooper Fenwick.

We put our rain gear on near the La Veta Pass. We should have just waited there for 10 minutes. As soon as we got the gear on, it quit raining. It still looked like it might rain, but it never did.

Once we were near Walsenburg, we were out of the mountains. We decided to head for Limon again. This puts me about 1055 miles, or 2 days, from home.

The sun was getting low on our way to Limon.

In Limon, the KOA camper cabins were all booked and most of the rooms were full, but we found a room.