Wednesday

Next morning we are up early 7am to be fed doughnuts and coffee by Petra. And are soon on the road to the Garden of the Gods.

Now beginning to see how steep the Rockies can be.

Scenery is amazing almost surreal. I buy a straw cowboy hat that becomes regulation head wear on the bike, only eye protection is compulsory in Colorado.

Panthers cause almost as much interest as the geology. Everyone wants photos of them. I let one dad sit his kids on KDK for a family snapshot. We then climb our first pass “Ute” 9165 ft the solo’s leave us way behind. When we meet up for dinner it becomes obvious that they are not traveling that much quicker and we all eat together.

Next comes Wilkerson pass 9507 ft. On the way down we stop at a viewpoint to see the massive expanse of the plains stretch out forever into the distance a view that is only short of John Wayne. We even see Bison in the distance.

Near to this point Laurie’s solo backfires and startles a bear in a field, , it simply gets up and ambles off.  I wish we had seen it!

Eventually get to Buena Vista and camp at a mountain campsite by Cotton wood lake up a six mile unmade road, it nearly shook my fillings out and did the rigid bike no good at all. We had been warned about altitude sickness but never believed it would affect us. How wrong. Above 11000ft life is hard work, even putting up the tent is difficult, everyone feels nauseous.

Go exploring with the kids and find a Beaver dam and lodge, we have never seen those in Lancashire. Drink whisky around the fire. Ensure all food scraps are locked away so we don’t encourage the bears.

Thursday

Book onto a white water rafting trip, after an hour of thinking that we had missed the last trips available that day. What fun. The girls and kids were in one raft whilst the men plus Jennie were in a second. Much competition splashing and water pistols. Steve and Chris became “Swimmers” i.e. fell overboard. Frank ended up in the water as well with a bit of help from Dave.

Had dinner in a brewpub come pizza place in Salida. Here a local journalist from the "Mountain Mail" chased us down the road wanting the story and took a few pictures. I asked if he would send us a few copies and he did, complete with incorrectly captioned photo where Laurie becomes me.

Now started the climb. We were headed for Gunnison and that entailed crossing the great divide, going east to west across the Rockies. As the climb began the solos passed us. Me and Steve trying our best to maintain reasonable progress. After about half an hour of second gear work we passed a sign saying 6 miles to summit. I decided to drop into first so that the engine wasn’t laboring but never managed to regain second until we were at the top. This was the infamous Monarch pass 11312ft. It was great to see the others all waiting at the summit the Harley lads polishing their bikes could not believe it.

The ride down the other side was brilliant just wish I had been on my old Commando.

Hit Gunnison had a night in a Super8 and evening in a Mexican bar. Found an Internet connection to send news home.