Jim's Motorcycle Trips: 2012 Trip "Out West" - Fri, Day 7 (Grand Junction, CO to Steamboat Springs, CO)

Today was a ride to Steamboat Springs. The other motorcycle rider at the motel from Denver, last night told me about SR 139 over Douglas Pass just west of Grand Junction. He said it was a little out of the way, but it was a great ride, especially if you did it early in the morning. So that was my plan. After breakfast at the Best Western I headed west on I70 for a few miles. SR 139 had very little/almost no traffic on it and it was a fantastic ride. Not many people to meet on this route, but it was nice, in a way, to be so alone in such a beautiful area. In the photo below was the climb up the south side of Douglas Pass. Even though the pass was "only" 8,268 feet, it was very impressive. You can see SR 139 winding along in the lower left and then climbing along side the mountain on the right of the photo.

SR 139 heading up to Douglas Pass

This is another view shifted to the right showing SR 139 climbing along the mountain to the right that I had just come up.

This was the view from the top of the pass looking south back towards I70.

I had stopped to take a break and enjoy the scenery at the top of the pass. Notice the sharp drop off at the arrow signs. I walked over to the edge to see what was down there.

There were three Rocky Mountain deer on a ledge and the remnants of an old seat on a rocky ledge. Not sure how the seat got there over the ledge. May have been the remnants of an old accident years ago. The deer were not too shy and hung around to let me take pictures of them. The area was very isolated so I am sure they had not seen too many humans before!

Thought I would stop at Dinosaur National Monument since I was going through the "town" of Dinosaur in the far northwestern corner of Colorado. Not much in the town of Dinosaur. It was pretty run down. Prior to Dinosaur was the town of Rangely. It was a very nice town. Interesting that the Colorado section of the Dinosaur National Monument had NO dinosaurs, nothing, not even a real bone!! All the dinosaur bones were at the Utah entrance about 70 miles to the west. The only thing at this entrance was a one way 25 mile paved scenic road through a bunch of canyons. I was a little disappointed!!

I did ride down the scenic park road for about 5 miles just to take a break. I stopped to eat a snack and take a couple of pictures of the scenery and the bike. Turned around and came back out to US 40 to head on to Steamboat Springs.

Wow, was US 40 ever isolated and straight. Here is a pic of basically what I saw for the next 90 miles. I don't think I passed more than about 10-15 vehicles in those 90 miles either!

US 40

Once pass the town of Craig, the scenery got better and the road more curvy. Also, a lot of clouds started moving in. I got stopped at road construction for about 30 minutes about 25 miles from Steamboat Springs. Not only was there the construction delay but three vehicles rear ended each other stopping for the construction. That really slowed things up. Gave me time to check the radar up ahead. Looked like a lot of rain around Steamboat Springs. I headed on up the road from the construction and stopped at this place when I saw three downward streaks of lightning at one time directly in front of me! I just looked quickly for a place to pull off the highway and happened upon this place, Daddio's Bar & Grille in Milner, CO about 11 miles from Steamboat Springs. Looked like a great little bar & grille and made a nice picture with my bike!! Looked like the rain was moving out so I decided to not put on my rainsuit and head on.

I made it to Steamboat Springs just as the rain was moving out. The road was wet so my bike got pretty dirty! I checked into the Alpiner Lodge downtown. This was a really neat little lodge that was very motorcycle friendly. The desk clerk asked me after I checked in if I wanted a beer. Of course I said yes and out she came with a cold one!! The tasted good. I had a great place to park under the eave and right outside my door too!! She even showed me where the water hose was if I wanted to wash my bike. She brought out a bucket and bunch of rags for me to use. After dinner, I did wash the bike as it was covered with dirt from the wet roads coming into Steamboat Springs for about 5 miles.

Steamboat Springs Lodging

There was a great micro brewery right across the street from the Alpiner. Here was a yellow lab waiting for his owners to finish a beer or two outside the brewery.

Some great microbrews here!

Interesting this was a sculpture in a park in the downtown area of a couple of boys that were miners and one skier. I guess that is what Steamboat Springs is famous for - mining and skiing.

The replica of a carbide lantern on the one boy's hat was almost identical to a carbide lantern my Dad owned. He was a coal miner in West Virginia. It is something that they used these open flame carbide lights in the mines many years ago before battery lights. It had to be quite a hazard with methane gas!!!! Plus they didn't give a lot of light and were hard to light and keep lit!!! (I know, I used to play with my Dad's carbide light when I was growing up in the mountains! I can still remember the smell of the bubbling carbide. Makes me remember too, when I was in college in a chemistry lab doing identification of unknown substances. When we put the powder in water to make a test solution, I instantly sensed the smell of acetylene and I was the only one in the lab to identify the substance as calcium carbide!!)

I actually met a couple that was also motorcycle touring the west from my hometown. We had a couple of beers and swapped stories about our trips so far. We then went to The Ore House restaurant to eat dinner. Had a great dinner and a great time catching up with each other. When we came out of The Ore House we saw this double rainbow. It was probably the most vibrant/brightest rainbow we had even seen. Cars were even stopping on the highway and taking pictures of it. It looks pretty good in this picture, but still didn't do the brightness of the colors justice!!

I walked back to the Alpiner Lodge that evening. An interesting thing was a self serve/coin operated Dog wash along with a car wash there in Steamboat Springs. An interesting idea. I had never seen that before.