We bid adieu to Denver just before 8am and headed southwest into the mountains. The skies were gray today and temperatures were lower than we anticipated. Again, Colorado impressed us with its beauty as we raced along sinewy rivers, through gorges and across the high plains.
During a fuel stop, Kitty saw another couple ride past and the woman riding pillion waved at us enthusiastically as her hair whipped around in the wind. Colorado does not have a helmet law like we are used to in California, but I much prefer to have that protection in place law or not. When we caught up with the couple, we were climbing up Monarch Pass and the temps were in the low 40s. I glanced over at the sign at the summit where the continental divide is marked: 11,312 feet above sea level. We're going to be drunk on oxygen when we get home.
After blasting across the high pains, we arrived in Montrose where we filled up the tank and the skies darkened. Suddenly the sky grew bright with a flash of lightning and thunder followed very shortly afterward. Heading south on highway 550 the sky opened up and made a mess of things. Thankfully, it cleared up before we arrived at our hotel. There is a fire burning south of us, but hopefully it won't force us to use a different route tomorrow.
We arrived at 2pm and The Angler Inn was abandoned of staff with a realty sign out in front, making us wonder if something had happened since I booked our reservation. Without cell reception, I used the phone in the abandoned lobby to call the number that had been left on the closed door to the front desk. It went to voicemail, so I left a concerned message wondering if we had a place to stay or not. Since we couldn't get a hold of anyone, we rode into Telluride to check out the town. Telluride was beautiful and small, reminding me of the Santa Ynez Valley 25 years ago. We strolled along the main drag for a little while before going into Brown Dog Pizza for a bite to eat. They serve their pies 'Detroit style' in a square pan and we opted for the 3-1-3, which was very tasty. I noticed that I had a voicemail after we finished our meal and it was someone from the hotel indicating that they don't have a front desk person until 3pm and that check-in was 4pm. I can understand that sometimes an early check-in is not possible, but for no staff to be on-site was pretty unsettling. We spent a bit longer in Telluride taking some photos and then headed back to get checked in.
Upon returning to the hotel, we were given a key to our room and as we approached it we heard what sounded like parents and children trying to murder one another. This was not the relaxing retreat that we had envisioned, so we returned to the desk to request a different room. Heading upstairs, we noted that the cacophony was no longer audible and we went into our room. Unfortunately, we didn't notice that the bed had a rather bad sag to it until it was too late to change anything about it. This made for a lousy night's sleep. We felt really let down by this establishment.
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