2016 Fall Motorcycle Ride to Durango

Days 1-4: Motorcycle Ride to Durango

The first leg of our fall trek would be a motorcycle ride to Durango, CO. Two main goals were to visit the Colorado National Monument near Fruita/Grand Junction, CO and ride US-550 from Montrose to Durango, CO. We would also make other stops along the way to visit an old Navy buddy in Salt Lake City, and some of our favorite and new restaurants.

We started a day late. We’re all getting older and one of our group had to get an MRI on the original departure day. He didn’t even wait for the results. I guess when you get older you don’t let small things like health stop you from continuing with your life and search for fun.

All went well the first day. We stopped at one of our favorite cafes for breakfast: the North Powder Cafe in North Power, OR. Great service and food.

Our day ended in Mountain Home, ID where we spent the night at the Gem State RV/Campground (formerly a KOA). If you’ve been following this blog you’ll know that Norm and I started camping here in 2005 and traditionally stop here and stayed in site #13 on our way east.

“I’m Pretty Sure”

The next day, things didn’t go as planned. We stopped in Snowville for possible gas and lunch at Mollie’s Cafe (another favorite). The food was good and the waitress was friendly.

After lunch I had planned on gassing up, but noticed I had enough gas to get to Tremonton, UT another 33 miles. There’s nothing in between Snowville and Tremonton so I asked Tom if his Spyder also had enough gas. At first he said he didn’t think so then said he thought so. I suggested that if there was any doubt we could easily gas up. He responded with, “I’m sure.” He looked at his odometer again, and said, “Well, pretty sure.”

We all missed one important thing regarding our mileage. we had been traveling 80+ mph on I-84. So, a long story short, Tom ran out of gas 5 miles before Tremonton. That was fixed by Steve who rode to Tremonton, purchased a 2 gallon gas can, filled it with gas and got gas for his bike.

Last two Days of our Motorcycle Ride to Durango

We arrived in Salt Lake City and hooked up with Vic, one of my old Navy buddies. He came prepared with a cooler full of Bohemians which we enjoyed pool side at the motel. Later we had dinner at the Red Iguana 2 which is one of my favorite restaurants in Salt Lake City.

The Next morning we headed south on I-84 to Spanish Fork where we caught UT-6 to to Green River where we had lunch at the Tamarisk Restaurant. Good food and service again. We ended the day in Fruita, CO where we camped at the Colorado River State Park for the night.

It was another blue sky day the next morning. We packed and headed to the Colorado National Monument, about 2.1 miles from the campgrounds. The monument is an awesome experience. We hiked a few of the short trails and stopped at most of the overlooks in the park.

We exited the park at the east gate and stopped for lunch and gas in Grand Junction. The best part of the day was our ride on US-550 (The Million Dollar Highway) from Quray to Durango (see featured photo at top and photo gallery link below). We stopped for the night in Durango, camping at the Durango KOA.

Days 1-4 Photo Gallery