Southwest Conference 2008

Southwest Conference - Santa Fe

June 11-14, 2008

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Our view of Balcony House after hiking in a mile or so.

Clint thought the walk in was pretty long considering we were wearing riding boots.

Checking out the cactus flowers.

Cactus flowers

On Monday morning we awoke to another beautiful day. We checked out and and headed east on Hwy 160 to Durango. We stopped along the way to help out a stranded biker who had run out of gas. We ran into a State Trooper a couple miles up the road and sent him back to help out. Our good deed for the day.

In Durango we headed north on Hwy 550 into the San Juan mountains. That was some beautiful riding. We went through Coal Bank Pass at 10,640 feet, Molas Pass at 10,910 feet and then had a great view of Silverton as we descended into town. Then back into more mountains going through Red Mountain Pass at 11,018 feet before coming down into Ouray. Having heard Ron Mau talk about Ouray for several years, it's easy to see why he likes the place. It is a beautiful little town nestled in among the mountains. We stopped at the Silver Nugget Cafe for brunch. Then we continued north to Montrose where we turned east on Hwy 50 winding past the Blue Mesa Resivor and through Gunnison continuing on until we hit Hwy 285 at Poncha Springs. We took that north to Fairplay then picked up Hwy 9 up to I-70 and into Silverthorn where we had a room at the LaQuinta.

The hotel had an Old Chicago Restaurant attached. They have 110 different beers on the menu. Our kind of place! Clint tried a flight of beers - 6 samples of different products. I stuck with a Smithwicks. After dinner we walked around awhile checking the town out.

View of the mountains from Cascade Village near Durango, CO

Mountain view along Hwy 550.

Hwy 550 near Silverton.

In the mountains south of Ouray, CO.

The view descending into Ouray from the south.

Downtown Ouray, CO. We had a nice brunch at the Silver Nugget.

The view from the La Quinta in Silverthorn.

Tuesday morning we got on I-70 to I-76 to I-80 heading east. This was just a freeway day and we got to Des Moines Iowa where we spent the night. As we left in the morning we could see where some of downtown had been flooded but the waters had receded there. From Des Moines it was a relatively short hop home and we were back in the early afternoon.

We got to see quite a bit of country and the Blue Knights in the Southwest Conference showed us a good time. I logged 3592 miles on this trip, Clint had a little more.

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