Colorado, or "Matt gets old." Sept 2019

Very late with this update...

Matt's turning 50, so it's time to get together for a mountain bike trip, and a celebration... or at least a mountain bike trip, and maybe raising a beer on the day.   So we're driving to Colorado!

September 7, 2019.

Very few pictures, because basically we got up and drove straight through to Hurricane, UT. 

Rest stop.  Bikes worth more than truck.

Exciting Las Vegas!

(Can't wait to get through it...)

The Raiders' new stadium in Vegas.

Pulling into Hurricane.  Finally!

September 8, 2019

Got coffee at the same spot we last time through here with Mom, and then headed just a wee bit east, and up a dirt road to ride on a partially slickrock mesa just to the west of Zion.

The coffee spot just outside Hurricane.

Yep, we're in Utah, all right.

Semi slickrock mesa.

The Prickly pear were a-fruitin'.

Lynne was darn tootin'.

She's nothing like Putin.

It was only pictures she was shootin'.

No rhyme here.

After we rode, we took a quick solar shower, and got in the car and started driving toward Colorado.

Drove through Zion.

It's very Zion-y there.  Go figure.

Stopped at this spot east of Zion to make a sandwich in the swirly rock.

And drove the rest of the uneventful way to Fruita in western Colorado.


September 9, 2019
I've never ridden in Fruita, and we didn't really come here to do that, but... we WERE here, so we'd totally be losing money if we didn't go for a ride.  So... we did a short ride right near Fruita before heading down to see Thomas and Nicole in Ridgway CO.

Along the Colorado River.  We had an eagle fly by BELOW us at this point.  Awesome!

A little further along, not getting too close to the edge.

Also treating the edge with healthy respect...

After the ride, we went to get a good cup of coffee and a smoothie in town and then headed down to Ridgway.

I mean, I like beer as much as the next guy, but making grains into Palisade Peach Coffee Cake is not a tragic story in my book at all!

Got down to Ridgway, and finally saw Thomas and his "new" home.  New meaning I hadn't seen it before.  Lynne went for a walk, and Thomas and Nicole and I went for a ride; Nicole headed back early, and Thomas and I kept going.  And ... damn I was beat at the end of the ride.  

September 10, 2019

I have an alarming lack of photos from Ridgway.  But we had a good time, though the visit was short.  We left Ridgway to head toward Crested Butte, but we stopped on the way at the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.  Pretty amazing canyon!  

You can see the river down there at the bottom.

There too.

Just pretty cool.

Painted Wall.  2250ft tall... tallest sheer cliff in Colorado.

Painted Wall again.

Overlook pic.

And I probably have a hundred more pictures of the wall and the canyon, and the river.  Just be glad I didn't share them Left the park and headed east, and ... drove right past Crested Butte.  Wait, weren't we going to Crested Butte?  Yeah, well there's a particular dog that decided to go in for emergency surgery, and she couldn't leave Boulder with her mom and dad, so her mom and dad couldn't drive to Crested Butte.  So... we drove to Boulder.  So close, and yet so far.

But first, we had to stop and make lunch along the river.  Must be properly fueled if one is going to continue to move one's foot between the gas pedal and the brake for a couple hundred miles...

So happy we're about to have food!

Lovely little spot.

We drove up and over Monarch Pass on the way.  It's really high, and there aren't a lot of oxygen molecules to be found up there.  Thankfully I have an automatic, and didn't need to move BOTH feet in order to drive.  That might have been just a bit too exhausting.

After this, we just drove straight on through to Boulder to see Matt and Vanessa, and their very selfish it's-all-about-me pooch Marlo.


September 11, 2019
We hung out for a bit in the morning with the completely faking it dog, and then we went for a ride just south of Boulder.

Obviously faking it.

V and L on the ride!

September 12, 2019 (Thursday)
Marlo decided that she was done faking her injury, and though she kept the bandage on her belly, she felt ready to ride in the car all the way to Crested Butte.  So we packed up, and headed back to that neck of the woods.  This time, we decided to go over Cottonwood Pass where there are even fewer oxygen molecules...

That's the side we drove up.

And that's the side we were headed down.

And that's how, ahem, high we were.

It was a pretty drive.  Lots of mountain views and trees and lakes and streams and such.

Taylor Park Reservoir

Just a pretty drive... the dirt road we were on, the valley, the mountains... wow.

We got to Crested Butte, and got into our condo right below Mt. Crested Butte.  It was a cozy condo, and our biggest complaint was that the heads on the wall were supposedly too fragile to touch.  Very disappointing because that's really what we wanted to do...

Damn... too fragile!

September 13, 2019
Just a great day out riding in Crested Butte.  Oh, and Matt's officially old.

Getting started.  The condo is sorta by those ones over on the left.

Vanessa

Lynne

Vanessa cruising through the aspens.

Lynne again.

Looking back down the valley.

Matt heading back down the valley.

Sang following.

Dropping back to the valley floor.

Aww yeeeah.

After the ride, we had to get the pup out for a break, of course.  I mean since it's all about her...

Here she is with her poop holder.

Marlo

Vanessa made an awesome African sweet potato stew, and we settled in to watch some sports ball.  "Did the ball go?"  "Yeah it did; the ball went."


September 14, 2019 (Saturday)
Longer ride today.  Still great weather, and still a crazy beautiful place.  We drove up north of town, and started riding...

Lynne and Vanessa heading up the road.

Lynne, Vanessa, Sang, Matt.

Still on the road...

Finally on some sweet singletrack at (gasp) about (wheeze) 11,350 feet.

Beautiful.

Heading down thataway!

Yesss.

Matt is very happy.

Meandering.

See, like that.

Lynne coming down!

We went out to dinner in town at The Last Steep.  Burger and beer and such.  Always good after a good long ride!


September 15, 2019
Well, unfortunately, we have to head home today.  Thought about getting up early, and trying to make it as far as possible so we could get to work tomorrow, but then decided that was a really bad idea.  So we got up early, and ... went for a little ride on the mountain.  We took the lift up to the top of the mountain, and did one run down.  Wheee!

On the lift.

Marmot!!

In the gates, ready to rip!

View!

So there's a disc golf course on the mountain, too.  I wasn't sure exactly where it was, so I didn't know if we'd see it.  Turns out that some of it was along the run that we were descending.  Made me want to play!

Some of my favorite things.

Aww yeeeah! (I say again...)

Cruising down to town.

Here's the tee, and the basket is by that red bench in the background.  Looks fun!

Alas, we had to go.  We finished our ride, and just started driving back west.  We stopped for dinner at the Tamarisk in Green River.  Some girls and their dog were out playing in the river.  They'd float down, then walk back up to this point, and then float down again.  Looked like fun.

Girls and dog.  But only if you zoom in.

We drove west through the San Rafael Swell, and ended up in Cedar City, very much not looking forward to driving through Vegas, Barstow, Bakersfield the next morning on the way home.  Ugh.

San Rafael Swell

September 16, 2019
Well, we were so not looking forward to that part of the drive, that we decided not to do it.  At Cedar City, we decided to head west across the middle of Nevada toward the eastern Sierra and cross at Yosemite.

It was a very exciting drive.

Road.

Road.

Road with tumbleweed (ooh!).

Road.

Road.

Road.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't ALL road... there were terrifying moments, too.

Aagghhh!  Clown Motel!!

Yeah, like that.  I have questions...

Seriously, though, it WASN'T all road, and it was so much better than going through the above mentioned towns.  Different at the very least, and we did end up getting to go through Yosemite.

We passed Mono Lake with a howling dust storm, and white caps.  And we got to drive on the super fun "dips" section of the highway of which I have no pictures.

Dust storm.

White caps.

It was howling wind when we started climbing up the road to Tioga Pass, and there was dust blowing across the road and down the valley on our way up.  I felt bad for motos and cyclists... must have been brutal.  And then we got to the other side, and it got a bit overcast, and eventually started raining before we made it all the way down the other side.  But we did stop for a lovely lunch on the way down.

Pretty spot.

Pretty spot with food and drink.

Pretty spot with food and drink and adventure companion.

Upstream.

Downstream.

We started driving again, and it wasn't long before it began to rain.  It wasn't super heavy, but it was enough to create thin little waterfalls on the sheer granite cliffs.  Looked SUPER cool.  I just couldn't really capture it, but here's a try.  All the little white streaks on the rocks are waterfalls.

From across the valley.

Zoomed a little.

Zoomed a little more.

More...

More more...

More more more...

Most.

From below-ish.

Again with the zoom.

...

...

...

...

Okay, that was a bit excessive, I'll admit.  But it was just really cool.  And you can tell it's big, but the scale really doesn't come through with this.

And... and... that's it.  We left Yosemite, and the rocks and the waterfalls, and we drove home.  Just in time to get to work on Monday Tuesday morning.  Maybe even on time, but I don't really remember.