The last hurrah

Jerry, Rick and I are spending our last night at a KOA in Cortez. We started the day by eating breakfast in Carbondale, Colorado. Then rode Hwy133 over McClure pass to Paonia. Then Hwy 92 down through Crawford and on to the Blue Mesa Reservoir. From there to Montrose and Ouray stopping later in Silverton for, wait for the drum roll.......ice cream. We kept riding south to Durango through some light rain and then over to the KOA in Cortez.

We are planning on leaving at sunrise to try and beat some of the heat on our final leg home.

Breakfast

Ouray

Silverton

The split up

Jerry, Rick and I headed to Colorado this morning and arrived at our reserved KOA cabin by mid afternoon. Nice temperatures with a little wind thrown in for good measure. Frank and Bruce took off on their 3 hour cruise to Rapid City to meet their girls who flew in from Phoenix for several days of partying with 400,000 of their noisiest friends.  Steve planned on staying at a friends in Sioux Falls tonight. I just got a call from Kevin who said he and Nate are switching gears and will ride all the way home, 900 miles, so as to avoid rain predicted for tomorrow.

Great ride day and the last one that we're all together

Well it's been a great trip, as always. We are splitting up into several small groups headed in different directions. 

Today though was the highlight of the ride. We first had breakfast in Red Lodge, Montana then rode over Beartooth Pass which is my, and many others, best motorcycle road in America. Then we got on Chief Joseph Highway, the second best.

Here are the pictures. Sorry if they aren't very clear but the whole trip has been plagued with fire smoke .

Beartooth mountain

Rick, Steve, Nate, Kevin, Jerry, Frank, Jim, Bruce

Riding through Montana, well part of it anyway

Today was a 323 mile ride through the countryside of Montana ending up in Columbus. Here are pictures of us cruising down the highway.

Jim on a K1600 BMW

Steve on a K1600 BMW

Kevin on a ST1300 Honda

Nate on a ST1300 Honda

Frank on a Honda Goldwing

Jerry on a 2018 Ardent Red Honda Goldwing GL1800

Rick on a Harley Davidson Trike

Bruce on a Harley Davidson Ultra Classic Limited

Long lonesome highway

Some interesting scenery

No pictures for Tuesday's ride

The batteries on my camera died so I don't have any pictures to post and the other guys didn't forward me any of theirs.

We rode hwy 12, also known as Lolo Pass east across Idaho to Missoula, Montana and then hwy 200 to Helena where we spent the night.