That night it snowed in the mountains which made the next morning’s ride to Durango an interesting experience.
Jim took the lead out of town knowing what the next section of highway had to offer. Steep embankments on the left and steeper drop offs on the right. With the possibility of ice on the road and knowing how Damian and Brendan liked to ride “spirited” it seemed like the prudent thing to do to slow them down. The views of the snow-covered mountains were fantastic.
We took a quick look at Silverton and then continued on to Durango on the famous “Million Dollar Highway”. T
he skies cleared up and warmer temperatures greeted us as we got closer to Durango. In Durango we took time to explore the Durango to Silverton narrow gauge train depot and museum. A nice lunch was had in Durango and then off to see the Mesa Verde National Park outside of Cortez.
Andy had made reservations for the guided tour of the Cliff Palace ancient dwelling. At the end of this long day, we arrived at our motel in Cortez.
In the parking lot was a new black K1600 GT along with Andy’s sub story; The service manager and mechanics at Foothills Motorcycle were very helpful but the repair diagnosis was financially terminal for a 2015 K1600 GT with 138,000 miles on it and for the rest of Andy’s ride.
A U-Haul was arranged and Andy called his wife, Kathy back in Houston, to tell her that his ride was over and he would be heading home. Kathy’s response was: “But are you not in a BMW motorcycle dealer? Just buy a new bike and get back on the road!”
A few hours later, Andy was up on a new 2023 K1600GT heading to stay with a friend in Denver. Thank you, Foothills Motorcycles!
The next day, Andy rode west alone on I-70 through snow and freezing rain through Eisenhower tunnel to Grand Junction and then south to Cortez to meet up with Jim, Damian and Brendan.
