The plan was for all of us to ride to Mesa Verde National Park, located just outside of Cortez, CO, and then ride to Ignacio to spend the da...
The plan was for all of us to ride to Mesa Verde National Park, located just outside of Cortez, CO, and then ride to Ignacio to spend the day at the Rally.
We all got to Mesa Verde, and found a nice scenic ride through the park to the visitor center. Mesa Verde is a series of canyons with indian cliff dwellings built into the crevices. We were about to get on our way to visit the various dwellings, when Stumpy said he wasn't feeling well. He opted to head back to the motel.
The rest of us rode on to the "Cliff Palace", which is the largest of the cliff dwellings. The Cliff Palace requires buying a tour ticket to actually up to the dwelling. Otherwise, you'd have to view it from a distance. So, Bob, Lewis and myself each bought tickets, and hiked down to the dwellings.
Mesa Verde has lots of archeological sites and hikes, you could spend several days there seeing it all. The roads within the park offer some nice scenic motorcycle rides, but at slow speeds. There's a lot of tight twisties, and a lot of slow moving cars. The road takes you up to the top of Mesa Verde, and gives you some expansive views of south west Colorado.
We got out of Mesa Verde around 2:30pm, and rode into Durango for lunch. We headed down Main Street in the old part of town. You could see thousands of bikes parked on along Main Street in the city center, which is where I had led the group to. Bob mentioned seeing a place called "Lost Dog Bar & Lounge", about block back, but had no bikes anywhere near it. He figured it wouldn't be crowded there, and would be a better place to go. I mentioned that the fact that no bikes were parked there suggested it was not as good as the other bars and restaurants. Nonetheless, Lewis agreed with Bob, and we rode back and parked our bikes there.
It turned out to be a good choice. The food was good, and so was beer. We were pretty much the only customers there. But not too long after, other bikers started walking in, one after another. Perhaps the sight of our bikes parked out front made other people feel comfortable about trying it out.
After lunch, we headed over to Ignacio. The rode to Ignacio was filled with bikers riding to in and out of town. Ignacio itself is located inside an Indian Reservation. Most of the riders were riding at the posted speed limit of 55mph, while the three of us and a handful of others were blowing past them at 80mph.
In Ignacio, the city center was jammed with bikes and vendors. I'd say about 90% of the bikes were Harleys. We got into the fairgrounds, and found rows and rows of tents where bikers were staying. Here and there, guys were waving signs that said, "Show us yer tits", and here and there girls were flashing them. Somehow, Bob managed to look in the right direction at the right time, and became the beneficiary to much of it.
At the Beer Garden, they had elevated stages where girls in skimpy bikinis danced about, giving everyone crotch shots. One gal was cute and thin, another was cute but chubby, while another was middle-aged and completely misshaped. Bob noted another girl in the audience flashing her boobs.
The Rally schedule for today pretty much had nothing going on until 4:00pm, when the men's wrestling took place. Other than that, the only other event was a concert from The Guess Who, at 9:30pm. Since neither of us were interested in watching wrestling, and none of us cared to hear The Guess Who, we wandered about the vendor area and found nothing extraordinary, same old shit, different place.
We left the Rally around 6:30pm, and headed back to our motel in Cortez to pick up Stumpy for dinner. Stumpy's sister Janet was driving down from Denver with her husband and daughter to visit him, and we were all supposed to have dinner with them at 7:00pm. On the way back we ran into patches of rain. I was leading them back at around 80mph, when Bob decided to take over and lead us back at 90mph. Just outside of Cortez it really started pouring. Fortunately, we were able to get to the motel before we got totally soaked. We learned the next day that the rain got really bad in Durango and Ignacio. A couple of riders who were staying at our motel couldn't ride back, and had to sleep in the lobby of a motel in Durango.
That evening, we all went out to dinner with Stumpy's sister and her family. We went to a place called "The Dry Dock" in downtown Cortez. The restaurant was like an upscale family restaurant, probably not something that bikers would frequent. After dinner, Stumpy's sister wanted to ride on the back of his motorcycle, but he was already going to take her daughter instead. So, she rode on the back of mine. We got close to the motel when she said she wanted to keep on riding. So I kept going, and ended up riding to someplace where I had no idea where I was going. So, I turned around and went back to the motel.
We all got to Mesa Verde, and found a nice scenic ride through the park to the visitor center. Mesa Verde is a series of canyons with indian cliff dwellings built into the crevices. We were about to get on our way to visit the various dwellings, when Stumpy said he wasn't feeling well. He opted to head back to the motel.
The rest of us rode on to the "Cliff Palace", which is the largest of the cliff dwellings. The Cliff Palace requires buying a tour ticket to actually up to the dwelling. Otherwise, you'd have to view it from a distance. So, Bob, Lewis and myself each bought tickets, and hiked down to the dwellings.
Mesa Verde has lots of archeological sites and hikes, you could spend several days there seeing it all. The roads within the park offer some nice scenic motorcycle rides, but at slow speeds. There's a lot of tight twisties, and a lot of slow moving cars. The road takes you up to the top of Mesa Verde, and gives you some expansive views of south west Colorado.
We got out of Mesa Verde around 2:30pm, and rode into Durango for lunch. We headed down Main Street in the old part of town. You could see thousands of bikes parked on along Main Street in the city center, which is where I had led the group to. Bob mentioned seeing a place called "Lost Dog Bar & Lounge", about block back, but had no bikes anywhere near it. He figured it wouldn't be crowded there, and would be a better place to go. I mentioned that the fact that no bikes were parked there suggested it was not as good as the other bars and restaurants. Nonetheless, Lewis agreed with Bob, and we rode back and parked our bikes there.
It turned out to be a good choice. The food was good, and so was beer. We were pretty much the only customers there. But not too long after, other bikers started walking in, one after another. Perhaps the sight of our bikes parked out front made other people feel comfortable about trying it out.
After lunch, we headed over to Ignacio. The rode to Ignacio was filled with bikers riding to in and out of town. Ignacio itself is located inside an Indian Reservation. Most of the riders were riding at the posted speed limit of 55mph, while the three of us and a handful of others were blowing past them at 80mph.
In Ignacio, the city center was jammed with bikes and vendors. I'd say about 90% of the bikes were Harleys. We got into the fairgrounds, and found rows and rows of tents where bikers were staying. Here and there, guys were waving signs that said, "Show us yer tits", and here and there girls were flashing them. Somehow, Bob managed to look in the right direction at the right time, and became the beneficiary to much of it.
At the Beer Garden, they had elevated stages where girls in skimpy bikinis danced about, giving everyone crotch shots. One gal was cute and thin, another was cute but chubby, while another was middle-aged and completely misshaped. Bob noted another girl in the audience flashing her boobs.
The Rally schedule for today pretty much had nothing going on until 4:00pm, when the men's wrestling took place. Other than that, the only other event was a concert from The Guess Who, at 9:30pm. Since neither of us were interested in watching wrestling, and none of us cared to hear The Guess Who, we wandered about the vendor area and found nothing extraordinary, same old shit, different place.
We left the Rally around 6:30pm, and headed back to our motel in Cortez to pick up Stumpy for dinner. Stumpy's sister Janet was driving down from Denver with her husband and daughter to visit him, and we were all supposed to have dinner with them at 7:00pm. On the way back we ran into patches of rain. I was leading them back at around 80mph, when Bob decided to take over and lead us back at 90mph. Just outside of Cortez it really started pouring. Fortunately, we were able to get to the motel before we got totally soaked. We learned the next day that the rain got really bad in Durango and Ignacio. A couple of riders who were staying at our motel couldn't ride back, and had to sleep in the lobby of a motel in Durango.
That evening, we all went out to dinner with Stumpy's sister and her family. We went to a place called "The Dry Dock" in downtown Cortez. The restaurant was like an upscale family restaurant, probably not something that bikers would frequent. After dinner, Stumpy's sister wanted to ride on the back of his motorcycle, but he was already going to take her daughter instead. So, she rode on the back of mine. We got close to the motel when she said she wanted to keep on riding. So I kept going, and ended up riding to someplace where I had no idea where I was going. So, I turned around and went back to the motel.
