Day 4 - Wednesday

Wed. morning at Jamie's place. I'm up early, make coffee and attempt the blogging for previous days. The plan for today is to head up Route 9 and over to Rocky Mountain National Park, Estes Park, Roosevelt National Forest then stay the night in Steamboat Springs. By my calculations we should be in Steamboat around supper. Turns out that was a horrible assumption, but more on that later.

We were supposed to get an early start today but as it turns out, Jamie slept in, had laundry, dishes, and house cleaning to do. Oh yeah, she hadn't begun to pack yet either. Does this sound like Jamie ? So I tried to stay patient and help where I could. Finally we were getting out around 11:30. Only a couple of hours behind (remember my calculations?)

There is abundant wildlife around. I am entertained by the birds and chipmunks while trying to figure out the mystery surrounding the hummingbird feeder. The last two days have found it on the ground with the base unscrewed. It appears to be a bear but no one has seen it yet.

We're packed and ready to go!

The ride up Route 9 was great. These are all new roads for Jamie so everything is fresh. The road follow the Blue River for the most part and is nice and windy. We stop in Kremmling for lunch and gas. Very small town and we took a chance on the diner.

"The Diner"

Lunch was surprising good! Gotta love those upside surprises. We took off from Kremmling and headed out Route 34 towards Rocky Mountain National Park.

The ride there was great, but paled in comparison to what we were next encounter...

Turns out that the ride up into the park is spectacular! We couldn't stop and take many pictures on the bikes, but the weather was fabulous and the sites outstanding. I added a link here to give an idea of the sites we saw.

http://imagesofrmnp.com/gallery.php?gallery=rmnp

Here is one of the turnoffs...

Remember my comments about the mileage, well it needs to be doubled due to the switchbacks..
The road leads above 12000 feet, well above the tree line. I think the link I posted shows views from up here. It is totally amazing. On the way up, we saw three elk. Couldn't stop and take pics, but they were cool. One bull and two cows.

We left the park and headed directly into Estes Park. The ride down waws beautiful.

http://estesparkcvb.com/photo_gallery.cfm

Hopefully this link shows some of what we went through. Weather is still beautiful!

I mentioned that we had reservations in Steamboat Springs. We met some folks at the summit who mentioned that they had just come from there and that it was about 1 1/2 hours away. That sounded good to us and kind of put us back back on schedule. Well, I'm not sure what route they took but 1 1/2 hours later we weren't out of Estes Park yet. Steamboat was beginning to look farther and farther away. We wondered over to Loveland then Ft. Collins where we would begin the trip through the Roosevelt National Forest. Another beautiful area that cannot do justice to. so check out this link to get a glimpse of what we are witnessing.

http://www.joeandfrede.com/colorado/roosevelt.htm

Well, our timing on the mileage was WAY off and it is getting late. We stopped just before duck and had a makeshift dinner from our food stores. Not much to talk about, carrots, apple, orange, jerky, etc, but in such a beautiful place, it doesn't matter and is somehow very fulfilling.

Ok, it was getting dark now and we had much further to go than we had planned on. As it turns out it was getting dark and Waldren was approx 100 miles down the road and Steamboat approx 160. Where were those guys who said it was 150 miles away. We were traveling between 20 mph and 50 mpg due to the switchbacks. Wow, were we ever going to get there?

It was pitch dark now and we were very late. Oh yeah, let me back up just a bit...

When we were going over my gear Jamie was making fun and mocking me about the heated gloves that I had brought along for the trip. Well, check this out, 40 degrees F, wind chill about 20 degrees F and Jamie couldn't go any farther. SOOOO, I plugged in the gloves out in the middle of nowhere so she could thaw her hands to get us to Steamboat. Well, needless to say, she isn't making fun of my gloves anymore!!!

We avoided frostbite to Jamie's hands and managed to roll into Steamboat at 11 pm. Of course the whole town was shut down. We checked in to our hotel, found out about a late night pizza joint that delivers.. got some grub and crashed hard.

Total miles = 430 time in the saddle = 11 hours!