I checked again if the interstate was still closed and yup, it was. We started at 8 am and it was cool and crisp as we started the backtracking. First time I was wearing gloves so not too many pictures for the vid during the morning hours.
As we headed back over our tracks and back up into the Rockies, this truly is a great stretch of road. We reach Steamboat Springs at 80 miles. At 120 miles in Craig CO, we stopped to put on rain gear as our detour was taking us right into showers…
Sure enough, as soon as we turned off of US-40 and onto CO-13 to head down to Rifle CO, it started to rain. But we were in it only about 15 minutes, then our direction kept us away from rain. Co-13 is a fast two lane road with enough passing lanes and plenty of passing opportunities. My restless night worrying about the detour traffic soon revealed that I over though this. Although there was definitely more traffic, it was bit a traffic nightmare.
200 miles later, we were back on I-70. It would have been 60 miles if the freeway didn’t experience the mudslide. So we had to do 200 miles to get the 60, and 4 hours to get 1 hour.
The plus side was two additional mountain passes and an interstate that didn’t have the crazy traffic on it. It was like how the traffic was 30 years ago.
The weather was great at this point, off came the rain gear, the white puffy clouds look like the jumped out at you. And it was a great ride to Grand Junction CO and to Green River UT.
As we approached the Green River area, you could see the big thunder head clouds over the nearby mountain ranges. Since I didn’t get much sleep due to my stupid worrying and the heat was starting to get me sleepy, we decided to hang at a nice little spot we have stayed at before on the river and call it a day. We didn’t want to get rained on again, plus what’s the hurry?
Sunday 8/2/21 Team 60s Video Summary Eagle COo to Green River UT via Steamboat Springs CO
Lucky you stayed in Sturgis another day on 7/31, because there were 100 drivers that were caught in the mudslide that day and had to be rescued. It’ll take awhile to clean up the damage. Very harrowing!
Btw, it is MONDAY 8/2. (Not Sunday).
Today’s ride looked BEAUTIFUL, a great way to take a detour and turn it into such an opportunity for a stunning drive, and looks like a beautiful spot for your hotel!
Sunday 8/1…Sunday 8/2…what’s the diff? They had to do a lot of backtracking…having a Groundhog kinda day😂
😂🤣 You are so right!
My bad on the days… it’s hard to keep track once your retired 🙂
Ha, that’s great! Just want to say I appreciate so much your reporting, documenting, photographing every day…. Along with having to watch the weather, news about flash floods, mudslides, and then getting on your bikes every morning heading out to drive hundreds of miles. You guys are superhuman!
Yeah, what’s the hurry? Enjoy the trip.
😎
Beautiful pics with the crazy clouds. And the hotel looks nice.
Great report Jimmy, thank you. I stayed at that motel at the Green River. Also, are you saying that you’ve been riding without gloves this whole time?
Yes, Tom… I haven’t worn my gloves but once. It’s been warm most of the trip. Haven’t been wearing my lid either since Vermont. Ive been navigating back west through helmet free states 🙂
Lid is back on Tomorrow in Nevada
I feel like I’m seeing this great country too. Great updates!
👍
AMAZING! I love all the different types of mountains you’ve been through – some all green with trees, beautiful colored rocks, snow covered, rounded hills or craggy scapes. Just beautiful! What a trip! You’ve been on the road 45 days and been through just about every landscape you can think of. The hotel looks very inviting, too!
P.S. You’re sounding like an old man talking about how things were 30 years ago😁🥰
😁