Montrose, May 25, 2016

I know what you’re thinking: “Dale, why the desert?  Why does it always have to be the desert?  Don’t you ever go anyplace else?  It’s all rocks and lizards, arroyos and tumbleweeds.  What’s the deal, didn’t your mother breast feed you as an infant?”

Well the answer to the last question is: I don’t remember.  But it doesn’t always have to be the desert.  I can deal with another geoclimatological zone (hooray, I made up another word).  I’ll show you that I can be flexible; starting right now.

Wednesday morning it was up, shower and out the door by 0800 hrs (that’s eight o’clock in the morning for you civilian types).  A quick stop for gas and then about ten minutes of driving around Cortez looking for my highway (yes, I got lost again!) out of town.  It was about a block away from my motel, but in the opposite direction from the gas station.

I chose to take CO-145 on this, the last leg of my outward journey.  It is one of two routes to Montrose. The other, US-550, is quite the white knuckler, but more about that on the return trip (this is known as a tease in the advertising game), CO-145 might as well be named the Dolores Highway as it runs through Dolores County, through the town of Dolores, along the Dolores River.  Local lore is that this Dolores chick really got around.

If you ever wondered where San Diego's water comes from, well it starts right up there.

The drive needs little descriptive language as the photographs below serve well to tell the story.  This (compared to say, US-550) is an easy drive for an old hand and not so terribly challenging that a less experienced mountain driver wouldn’t be able to negotiate it.  It has some significant elevation changes but the road is in good repair with no intimidating no-shoulder drop-offs to the side, hairpin turns or switchbacks.  And this is important because you will want to be able to take in the scenery as it goes by.

GPS Elevation at Lizard Head Pass

The elevation reaches over 10,000 feet at its apex.  At ten o’clock in the morning (that’s 1000 hrs to you mil types) the temperature at Lizard Head Pass was 47^o F… I was wearing cargo shorts and a polo shirt, in case you noticed the camera shake.  The highway runs through the town of Rico (shown below), past the side route to Telluride and into Placerville where I turned north onto CO-62.  It is a short drive to reach Ridgeway, the town where the John Wayne version of True Grit was filmed.  A funny aside:  When I was a teenager and saw the movie True Grit, I noted to myself and anyone who would listen, “I’ve been to Oklahoma (the setting for the story), and that is not Oklahoma.” You can’t get many passed me.

Rico, CO

Rico graveyard, right by the side of the highway

The next turn is onto US-550 which has been drained of its venom by this time.  It is a leisurely drive through the farmland of Montrose County into the city itself.   I will not boar you with the tedium of family activities.

I will begin my trip home in a couple of weeks, so stay tuned.  If anything of note happens in the meantime (and if you really knew me well you would know how high the probability runs), I will write you from jail.