Day 25

We had a productive evening to end day 24, taking advantage of the laundromat next to our hotel as well as the nearby car was to blow some of the road grime off the Nomad.

Day 25 had one of the top Motorcycle roads in the USA on the agenda, the Million Dollar Highway which is also known as the San Juan Skyway.  It has 242 turns over the 71 miles it covers and has three mountain passes that you climb to over 10,000 feet on the way over.

I'm impressed Char got this photo, it wasn't long after we hit the road on highway 491 and came up on us fast.  We stayed on 491 throught Cortez and onto Durango, CO

From Durango we headed North on Highway 550 or as previously mentioned the Million Dollar Highway.  Immediately the scenery starts to pick up as you start climbing.

We stopped at the Molas Summit which was over 10,900 feet elevation.  Spectacular views in every direction.

The view as we depart the Molas Summit rest stop.

It was hard to show it in this photo but the colors to this formation were incredible and against the greenery background it was something to see.

Char had the tough task of trying to show the twists of the road from the back of the bike.  In this series of switchbacks we are on one section with two more immediately below us just a 15 mph switchback away.

I liked this photo so it's in the blog.

The people of Ouray were lining the streets as we rolled through which I thought was a little over the top since we're just regular folk. Char seems to think they were out for something to do with the 4th of July and a parade, guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

A little Nomad glam shot on the downside of McClure Pass on Highway 131.  Highway 131 between Hotchkiss and Carbondale may have moved to the top spot of my favorite roads to ride on this trip.  Lots of twisties but none of the 15 mph switchbacks that I find break up the fun and rhythm in a ride.

We got chased by weather the last 100 miles into our destination of Glenwood Springs, CO but other than a few drops we managed to arrive rain free.  It's raining as I prepare this blog entry but I'm hoping it will blow overs as we are looking forward to seeing some fireworks tonight for Independence day.

I'm not sure if it's the toll of 25 days on the road combined with hotels and restaurant food but it feels like the miles are getting tougher to get in each day.  We may back down the mileage a bit on the remaining days of this trip.  We are both sporting some pretty bizarre tan lines that we will have to address in short order at home as well.

Mileage covered today was 557.1 km bringing our trip total to 7451.2 km.