Round 3, Day 2, 12JUL06

Wheee-Ha! Now this is a riding day! Up at 0600 and over to the supermarket for breakfast staples - a little fruit, some glazed doughnuts, fresh coffee; then the auto store for some 20/50 oil (little low), and the liquor store - oh, wait, that's for later....

On the road by 0800 under dazzeling azure blue skies with nary a cloud. Temperature in the low low 60's - time for extra layers and maybe that sweatshirt you threw in at the last. From Buena Vista we took Cottonwood Pass Road, which is paved on the eastern side of the range. It is amazing to note how many bicycle riders are out on this road that I know from experience goes way, way up (like 12,000 feet). They are starting out at nearly 9,000 so just what are they thinking? Anyway, Emily got her first real taste of real mountains this day. Still snow on the summit, as you can see.

Em does have a little cardiac thing going on that bears watching, so we didn't hike to the actual summit, but we were both whooping and hollering coming down the western side (dirt) amid the RV's and the trees.

Again, my expertise with pasting photos on this site is not what I would like, as this next shot is the follow on pass. Cottonwood is between B.V. and Crested Butte, Kebler is between C.B. and Paonia.


The above 2 shots are Kebler.
The above is the paved side of Cottonwood.

This is our visit in Crested Butte. There are so many photos I'd like to include, but there just isn't space. Crested Butte is a ski town, but also a very artsy kind of place in the summer months. Hiking, riding, fishing, biking - just about everything I can think of that I'd like to do can be found here. Pedestrians RULE the roads, and we were waved ahead of several cars as we ambled from store to restaurant to cafe. Flowers were everywhere, as were novelties like this trunk/bumper bench.

We dined at a pizza shop, and then headed up to Kebler Pass. This road is dirt most all the way, and though it 'only' reaches 10,007 feet, it passes through huge stands of aspen trees. It's open range, by the way, so one never knows what will be around the next bend - a cow, a deer, a view, or the edge of the road!

Photo op after photo op, and a new hand signal for 'take a mental picture of this' was invented. I could tell by the grin on her otherwise too-cool-for-words-non-challant face that it was getting to Emily as much as it was to me. She even borrowed the camera to run back to get a shot I'd been too slow in stopping to get.

Coming off the pass onto Rt133 I guessed wrong and turned away from Paonia State Park, my intended destination, and headed directly into Paonia Proper. Ok, we can check out the preparations and I can show Em around a little. Lo and behold they were allowing early camping in the city park without payment, so we scoped out a choice location and set up home for the next three days. Dinner at the casa de Chief Boyardee and