June 9 2025 Day 4

June 9, 2025 – Durango CO – Day 4

 

Sitting in the Steamworks brewing company in downtown Durango and I sure wished I would’ve known about the free trolley in town before worrying about where I was going to stay for the night. I figured I needed to find a hotel within walking distance of a bar or restaurant that serves alcohol, but once I booked a room at the Quality Inn, real close to the Adobe Inn I stayed at 19 years ago, I went to the Durango brewery within walking distanced and they suggested I take a trolley downtown to where all the action is. It’s free and runs until 2 in the morning that I guess I can go anywhere I want and have a fun night at that. The guy next to me suggested I go to the Diamond Bells. The old times saloon with the bar girls, but they are young ones dressed like hooter girls, could me interesting. Am having a couple of sour beers and just had crispy wings that I’m now ready for the night other than getting this story written and carrying this damn laptop around with me. Yea, the problems of traveling and trying to blog the trip, maybe I should stick to what I did in 2023 and 2024 and write part of the story and get around to finishing it 2 years down the road, so you get the whole story.

 

This morning was perfect weather in Aspen for a bike ride and although a bit chilly, by the time I got going it had warmed up pretty nice. The day started out cool meeting three bikers from Switzerland that had rentals from Eagal rentals that I joined for breakfast where I got to fill them in on Riders Share and how you can find cheaper rentals that than the Harley’s version of a rental bike. They are heading to Phoenix on this trip, and I told them they should really consider the Million Dollar High way which I plan on riding today. 

 

I did get an early enough start this morning, 9:30 since checkout was 10, so am going to have plenty of time to make it do Durango which according to my bike map is about 5 hours away. I do have another stop to make on the way, so I still followed the bikes directions with a fly by where the bike figures is my leaving stop from downtown Aspen. It was an easy route even if it did take me downtown where I was last night, but no problems getting me on the highway toward the million-dollar highway. The ride was great, and I was happy to have my leather jacket on cuz it did get a bit chilly still riding thru passes in the mountains.

 

My first stop today was going to be the Orvis Hot Springs that I visited last time thru that I had no problems finding it. I did do like last time if you ever read the story and did it in my birthday suit once again. Maybe a bit expensive at $28 for a day’s spa with an extra $3 for a towel but felt worth it to me. Sure, there were more men than women that were doing the same in their birthday suits, but nice to see some of the women doing the same. There is no shame and you  have to be proud of what you have, I felt that way. 

 

I did a number of the different pools that they have, and they all had different temps. All were pretty comfortable soaking in and I do believe I did fall asleep in one of them. No problems walking around naked, the only place you had to wear a towel was in the building. Yep, there were even kids running around naked with their parents that noting to be ashamed of and pretty comfortable not worrying about packing wet cloths. 

 

After about an hour and a half in the pools I decided it might be time to take a shower and head to Durango so did so, but once outside I thought about checking the weather to see what radar is showing for the Durango area. My first notice though was that my GoPro was still on record and had been recording the parking lot for the last hour and a half that sorry, no naked pictures of anyone from the pools out there. Well, it looked like if I could postpone my trip for at least another hour I should be able to make Durango rain free, that I went back in to soak a bit more. This time there was a bit younger talent soaking in their birthday suits that catching a glimpse was a bit better than before. 

 

I did do at least another hour and now my third shower for the day and sure enough, according to radar I should be rain free to Durango. My only problem which I wished I would’ve thought about early was my GoPro had no juice to be able to record the ride. If I would’ve thought about it, I could’ve powered it up for my second soak, but didn’t think about it. I was bummed to say the least cuz this ride would have definitely been worth catching on the GoPro. The Millon dollar highway isn’t for the faint of heart when it comes to riding it on a bike cuz you have places you could easily go off the road and you wouldn’t stop until down in the valley. No guardrails and there are some pretty sharp round abouts to get both up and down the passes. In my comparisons of roads I’ve ridden, I think this one harder than the needles or Iron Mountain road in South Dakota and  nothing like the tail of the dragon near the smokey mountains. This road has more danger along the way than those. And to top it off, there as about a 5 mile stretch of construction where they were putting down oil and gravel to cover the road which trust me, is no fun to be riding on a motorcycle. I did have to pass someone going too slow cuz on a bike you have to keep up your speed thru the soft spots. 

 

To finish off today’s story so I can checkout downtown Durango. I did look for a cheap room thru my booking app and there was a hostel room right next to the adobe Inn which was the next cheapest, but after stopping in the adobe inn, the guy suggested if I wanted something within walking distance with an awning the comfort inn was the place to go that that’s what I did. Yep, under the awning parking which I like, but a bit pricier than both the hostel and Adobe Inn would’ve been. And that’s on top of finding out I have a free trolley to get me all around town that now, it’s time to party downtown and I’ll have to let you know what happens tomorrow.

 

Oh, and the rest of the trip until at least Salt Lake City will be a bit of journey since I’m going to try the camping side of this trip. We’ll see how that goes and might keep me offline for a while. 

 

So not too often that I do this, but tonight I’m in the El Rancho talking with Darren and I’ve been talking with him about my ridings and just work in general. Ok, another Darren, or Darins that I know from curling. Been a great conversation and we just gave Peggy a hard time about following her boyfriend to Denver. Ok, just found out they have been planning this for years so more on that story later. 

 

And to finish off the story since I’m just writing this a few days later. I did make the Diamond Bells bar after eating and the guy was right the women were dressed like Hooters girls from the cowboy days. It was a fun bar until everyone, me included started talking politics that they had to close the place and close us down because a couple of locals got into it that they may be feared weapons coming out. Oh well, that’s how I ended up in El Rancho talking with Darren for the night and the night didn’t end the way I had hoped. 

 

From what I understood there was a trolley that would run me from downtown back to my hotel and that it ran until 2 in the morning, but not on Monday’s they only run until midnight. Well, it was well after midnight when I went looking for a trolley and then did try Uber and Lyft with no luck and the bar tender gave me a number for a local guy, but when he told me $100 to take me 2 miles up the road, I decided to hoof it. According to my walking directions it’ll take me 40 minutes that I did try hitch hiking with no luck and did see the same police officer driving around 3 times, but I couldn’t get his attention. I would think he’d be stopping to make sure I was ok and maybe I’d get a ride, but no luck so it turned out to be a later night than I had hoped. 

 

And that is the rest of the story – per Paul Harvey!