Uraling Home from Rangely, CO

My work completed successfully yesterday morning, I was able to leave the Rangely Field Office by 9:30 AM and headed home via CO 139 towards Grand Junction.

She's a little dusty and muddy, but doing great.

I must say, CO139, which is part of the Dinosaur Diamond Scenic Byway, is a much better (if longer) choice for riding from Denver to Rangely.  I had taken CO13 from I-70, through Meeker and then to Rangely and the route was not as scenic.

The northern third of CO139, between Grand Junction and Rangely

is replete with beautiful rock formations

The centerpiece of this stretch of highway though, is Douglas Pass, while not presenting majestic snow-capped mountain peaks as other Colorado passes do; it holds its own in terms of scenery and delightful twists and turns both going up and down.

 Looking north on CO 139, heading towards the summit of Douglas Pass

 The wind at the summit of Douglass Pass was quite fierce where I

posed Scarlett for the picture above.  It was strong enough that I had 

to at times hold onto the handlebar to keep from getting pushed back 

away from the rim; which in retrospect is a good thing.

 A bit further down from the summit, now on the south side of

Douglas Pass, I got a little UDF by a couple of Beemer guys from

Georgia.  Below are Don and Jeff who are doing a large circuit of the 

West.  Turns out Jeff actually has read this blog....small world.

 Further south along CO 139, you can see the road stretch alongside

the mountainside and continue southwards.

 The view as one approaches Douglas Pass from the South

 Above is what you see as you leave Mesa County and head

into Garfield County

Once I got to Mesa County it was straight slab riding all the way into Loma and from there into Grand Junction.  I had the "bright" idea of using US6 instead of getting onto the I-70 Super Slab eastbound but that proved to be slow and traffic choked.

I got back on the I-70 eastbound slab at Palisade and stayed on it to Parachute, CO where I refueled and took a small break.  It was very windy that day but luckily it was coming from the South and didn't slow me down much.  Scarlett was able to hold 55-60 mph with no issues and while I was the slowest vehicle on the highway, traffic was light and people passed me safely all day long.

Soon, Scarlett and I arrived at Glenwood Canyon and this time I resolved to stop at each possible exit to see what views of the canyon could be photographed.

 The view at the western end of the "No Name" Rest area 

where several nice homes are built as well.

 Part of the view from the "Hanging Lake" Rest Area, I didn't

go on the hiking trail to actually see this Hanging Lake.

 Here's what you see if you get off at the Shoshone exit in Glenwood

Canyon, at the end is some property managed by the local

utility company.  There was even a boat ramp though it looked 

closed for the season as the river was running quite fast with snow melt.

As the Shoshone exit didn't have an entrance into eastbound I-70, this resulted in me having to head back west to Hanging Lake then using it to turn back east.  Still, only about 30 minutes used up doing all this back tracking.

Vail was next, the last time I was here on a motorcycle, it had been on Valencia and it had been Fall.  

 This is what Spring looks like in Vail

The came the slow climb up to the summit of Vail Pass, Scarlett was able to hold 50 mph but I had to gear down to 3rd gear in order to do so.  Still, she pulled strongly and I was able to get this shot:

After Vail Pass, came the towns of Silverthorne and Dillon, pretty towns in their own right but no time for photos today.  I did stop Scarlett east of Silverthorne to get this shot of the mountains located near the town.

That would be the last photo stop of the day, once I got past the Eisenhower Tunnel and the Continental Divide, it was just steady riding all the way to the Denver Metro area.  Got home around 6:30 PM I believe.  Scarlett did a bit over 1389 kilometers round trip to Rangely and back, averaging 40-44 mpg which is unheard of for a URAL.  For us, it was roughly 16 hours of highway time, not counting the time inside the Dinosaur National Monument.

I kept her speeds under 60 mph the whole trip and she seems to like it at those speeds on the highway.