Superior, CO to Gunnison, CO

What a nice town Gunnison is. We are staying at the Gunnison Inn which is adjacent to the town park and only a few blocks to Main Street. Western State College, with about 2500 students is the local place of higher education. They have a very pretty campus which I drove around during the afternoon. Good restaurants and Crested Butte is about 20 miles from here so they attract skiiers during the winter. There are lots of motorcyclists in town; I think this is probably a Saturday night layover for Coloradans out for a weekend drive.

It was a rocky start after too much fun last night. We headed off from the Morales home about 8:15, an hour late. In addition to too much fun, Mark and I were also feeling the altitude hit us as we ascended higher and higher.

We took Colo route 93 South out of Superior and managed to avoid Denver in its entirety. We went through Golden, home of Coors, then south along 285. A very nicely maintained four laner and two laner with lots of twists and turns and elevation changes. We stopped for breakfast in Fairplay, CO which is in the southern part of Park County. The show "South Park" is modeled after Fairplay. We ate at the Brown Burro, which was very good but a little slow. There was a big Women Motorcycle rally in town. According to the two State Troopers and two County Mounties that joined us at the breakfast table, about 2500 bikes were expected!

Finally we turned West on Route 50 in Poncho Springs which took us up and over Monarch Pass (11,300 feet!). The carbureted Triumph did just fine and the 6-mile four-laner up the hill was a snap. The 6-mile 7% one-lane downhill was a little testy with much smaller and many more blind corners. While at Monarch Pass we had a real interesting conversation with an independednt trucker, and Gold Wing (1986 1000) driver. He apparently had a faulty radiator cap and had stopped six times heading East up the Monarch Pass to let the truck cool. Fortunately the rest of the way was downhill until he could get some service.

We arrived in Gunnison a little after 2PM much to our surprise. I later learned that we are 60 miles short of the National Park which has resulted in a little dilemma. Tomorrow we can go as far as Green River, about 250 miles, or push on to Salina (our original anticipated stop) another 100 miles down the road. I checked with some locals and there is NOTHING between Green River and Salina. I made a reservation for tomorrow night at the Best Western in Green River (another local recommendation) and if we get there early enough we may push on to Salina. We will see.

Tomorrow night I will have to do some refiguring in that we intend to make it to Reno on the 14th and San Francisco on the 15th. We will see.

Finally, we had a great supper at the Ole Miner downtown. Steak, salad bar, green beans and I only at half the baked potato!

Well, that's it from Gunnison.

Chico and the Man