After driving to Crested Butte, I discovered one of my headlight bulbs was out. On a day trip to ride at Hartman Rocks in Gunnison, I stopped at an auto parts store and picked up some ATF and a headlight bulb. Later that evening I went to replace the headlight bulb just to find a perfect one in the headlight. Now I wasn't very happy knowing I had some interesting wiring issue going on. I also forgot to pack my voltmeter....Luckily a friend traveling with us had one and it seemed like we traced it down to a corroded ground wire on the inner fender. I scuffed it up and all worked, or so I thought. When we left Crested Butte for Telluride I noticed my headlight had gone out again. I scuffed up the ground even better and checked over the connections for corrosion. Nothing fixed it and at that point I didn't really care as my bumper fog lights and driver's side headlight provided enough for me to see.
Upon arriving in Telluride, we stopped in at a bike shop and got a few things and then went to the blue corner house for $1.50 tacos which were awesome. Then we grabbed the bikes, rode a little bit from mountain village back to town and stopped by that same restaurant for the $1 wings. After a successful day dodging rain, eating great (and cheap) food, we left town for Alta Lakes to go to our favorite spot on some rock pile overlooking Sunshine peak and the entire surrounding area. Much to our dismay we saw "Campsite Closed" signs everywhere on the drive up to Alta Lakes. None of us were in a great mood about that so we continued up to the lake and the only spots suitable for our two trucks and RTT were right next to a row of port-a-potties. No way were we camping there so we kept driving around hoping to find an old mining road. We came across Gold King Basin not too far from Alta Lakes, and it was definitely a great place to camp.
It seems like usually a day or two into the trip and we are emptying out the cruiser to sort through the unorganized pile of gear. The drawers made it so easy this year and we had four people's stuff in the cruiser compared to the usual three.
The next day we dropped down into town and grabbed breakfast at Baked in Telluride and planned out our day. We decided to get some more biking in, and then hit Imogene Pass to get to Ouray. Imogene Pass was awesome as always and apart from what looked like a huge rainstorm moving in on us as we were on the summit, it blew off and the drive down the pass was beautiful.
Not sure how this happened. The guy said he had help on the way. We took the picture at a spot just 10 feet up the hill where at least 6 vehicles could have been parked.
We drove up the "Super Secret Road" in search of our favorite campsites and made camp with plenty of time left in the day to watch the sun gracefully dip behind the mountains that lock Telluride into its valley.
That night was the first night I had slept in the cruiser and it was awesome. It was slightly cramped with the fridge freezer, but not as badly as sharing the RTT with two others. I awoke to the sounds of grazing animals and dogs barking way out in the distance. Upon grabbing my camera and zooming in, I saw what looked like over a thousand sheep being herded towards Silverton over the mountain tops. We had seen a guy solo camping the night before with what looked like a more permanent tent set up that was even complete with a chimney.
As we cooked and ate breakfast, we continued to watch the sheep push onward across a neighboring mountain. It was truly amazing, and I had no idea that that was still really a profession. We had also seen a small cattle drive while leaving Crested Butte, but I would assume they were just changing fields or not going very far, but it was very cool nonetheless. Once we were done and packed up, we headed for Silverton and then onto Durango. Upon arriving in Durango, we grabbed some pizza at Home Slice and headed out to ride Horseshoe Gulch. After a good day of riding and hanging out on the river, we had to grab dinner at Gazpachos. With our bellies boiling with red chile and salsa, we made our way up La Plata Canyon to camp with our sights set on riding Phil's World early the next morning.
Luckily it was overcast and misting during most of our ride out at Phil's World at the trails were prime hero dirt. From that point, a couple of my friends rode back to Oklahoma with our friend and his 4runner, and myself and another friend drove up to Boulder to look at a triple locked cruiser that my dad was interested in buying. Oh and we also were trying to be at the bank by the time they closed in Pueblo that evening. Honestly, driving from Oklahoma may have been quicker, but we made it, and ended up bringing that cruiser back for my dad to build up and play with.
On the drive home, roughly 30 miles from Salina, my cruiser finally rolled 400,000 miles which was oddly satisfying. Sad in a way to end the 300,000 era and start over again, but I am sure the next 100,000 miles will bring even better memories! The trip was roughly 2450 miles and the cruiser averaged 10.5 mpg.
