Day 20 - Estes, CO to Golden, CO

We had sunny blue skies for our departure from Estes this morning. Rob loaded up the trailer and declared that everything fit. It looked like a great day to ride west through the entire park on our way to Golden, CO. 

We departed on time at 8am and fueled up, then rode over to the Beaver Meadows park entrance. It was the longest line we've experienced all week, but we expected it given it was Saturday morning. We did not get a reservation for today since we planned to be at the entrance before 9am. It took about 15 minutes and moved quicker once the third gate opened. The entire distance from Estes to Granby is about 48 miles. Since the speed limit is 35 mph, it took us over an hour. We made a stop early on at a scenic pullover for a morning photo shoot!

Michele requested a bike shot of us so Rob set up the tripod and camera. The lighting was a challenge but didn't Rob do a great job capturing us in this pretty spot?

Even though we rode to the peak several times on this trip, we never got tired of the view!

Although it doesn't look it, the temperature was 43 degrees at the top, the coldest we've had this trip! Rob mistakenly thought he'd be too hot today so he had only a t-shirt on under his riding jacket. No fleece or liner. Later, at lunch, he said he was shivering for two hours! (Michele wore her heated liner today).

As we made our way westward in the park, the traffic was dramatically lighter. There are trails on the western side we'd like to check out next time we visit here, like the trail that goes to the headwaters of the Colorado River. This area of the park was hit hard in 2020 during two forest fires (East Troublesome and Cameron Peak fires) that impacted 10% of the entire park. It was evident in huge swaths of burned trees.

On the west side of the park is the town of Granby. It has a very different vibe than Estes, much smaller and less built up, and with a beautiful lake.

We turned on to US 40 South at Granby. We didn't yet leave the mountains behind, though. US 40 took us up and over the Berthoud Pass (11,300 ft). Just when Rob had started to warm up, the temps dropped into the 50's again as we rode over the pass.

At Empire, CO, US 40 intersects with I70. We turned west on I70 and headed back up into the mountains. This is the Dwight Eisenhower tunnel.

The wind was fairly strong today. It made a nice day to be on sailboats.

We took 70 West into Dillon, CO for lunch. Rob originally planned for us to eat lunch at the Red Mountain Grill, but we couldn't easily find it. We saw the Dillon Dam Brewery in the location where we thought The Red Mountain Grill should be and saw they had a nice outdoor eating area so we parked the bike and ate at the brewery. The patio was really nice with flowers and trees and had plenty of seating for the Noon weekend lunch crowd. We shared a BBQ pork sandwich.

After lunch we picked up US 6 east out of Dillon and rode over Loveland Pass. We've been over this pass in previous trips, it's at 11,990 feet. We've never stopped at the summit before so we thought it would be neat to do so this time. Rob wedged the bike and trailer into a spot between two cars.

It was very windy and cold, but Rob said it was tolerable at 50 degrees (he had put on his fleece after lunch...see, he can learn...). Michele wore Rob's hat thinking it might be a bit warmer than her own. She doesn't look so warm though! We got a touristy pic at the overlook.

Then we walked up a few steps to a higher overlook. The winds were 40+ mph at the top! We didn't spend too much time trying to get the perfect selfie. 

There were pools of water in the steps, so we had to walk down on the edges of them. Kind of tricky with the wind gusting.

Back on the bike, Michele cranked up the heat and we made our way down from the summit. Beautiful scenery at every hairpin turn.

Where US6 intersects with I70, we got on I70 East towards Golden, CO. The temperatures dramatically increased as we descended from 11,000 feet in the mountains to 5,600 feet. It felt like summer again with temps near 80F. We fueled up and rode to our B&B, The Silk Pincushion, in Golden, arriving at 2:30pm, a bit early. The bike faces the main house and our room is behind the pergola on the right.

One of the owners came outside to greet us right away. We mentioned our plans to visit Mt. Evans tomorrow, the highest road in America. He asked if we had reservations...uh, what?! We did not realize we needed the same type of timed entrance pass to drive up to the summit, we should have researched that ahead of time. The owner said there are no reservations needed after 6pm, so worst case, we could go at night. Once we got checked in to our awesome room, Rob quickly got online and got us a pass for the 2-4pm timeslot tomorrow. It was the earliest available, so we snapped that up. With our annual America the Beautiful park pass, our entrance fee is covered. We only pay for the reservation timed-entry of $2. Not a bad deal. Here's our nice room, and Rob is happy that we got an entry pass! 

Rob worked on changing up our route tomorrow a bit, by adding more scenic roads instead of the interstate. We plan to visit the Echo Lake area that has hiking trails and picnic areas. Rob originally planned for a picnic lunch at Summit Lake, but since it's past the entrance gate, we won't be able to have lunch there before 2pm. It should be fun to check out the area tomorrow.

We ordered dinner online ahead of time from Woody's Pizza in town, and walked over to pick it up when they texted that it was ready. We shared a delicious burger, the "Fig and Goat" burger. It has fig jam, goat cheese, caramelized onions, and arugula. We also got a turkey veggie wrap for our picnic lunch tomorrow. 

Michele said that she had mixed feelings about leaving Estes and Rocky Mountain National Park today. Since we enjoyed ourselves in the park so much, it was hard to say goodbye. But, she was ready for a new adventure and hitting the road again. We had beautiful scenery today and sunny skies all day, so it was a good riding day! But just to keep the  rainy streak going, we had a few drops of rain hit us just as we pulled into Golden, CO. The weather in the area really is quite changeable.

We also passed 3,500 miles on our trip so far, with just over a week to go.