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Ultimate Colorado
We can hardly wait to warm up in Ouray, but it's a three-hour drive. Set at 7,760 feet in a box canyon, the town is ringed by sheer rock walls; beyond them peek out jagged, snowy edges of the San Juan Mountains. It's like being in a rocky double boiler.
We've come for the area's natural hot springs, like many travelers before us. At 126-year-old Wiesbaden Hot Springs Spa, we follow a tunnel underneath the lodge to the vapor cave. The little room is dreamlike and steamy; the walls drip, echoing. The shallow pool is 108°. I dip a toe in.
In the corner, a man we hadn't noticed for the steam starts chanting. The deep sounds reverberate off the rock walls. He's a skinny, bearded guy in a half-lotus position, eyes closed. I want to giggle. He opens his eyes and starts licking the wet rocks. Well, at least we're warm.
We are ruddy, steamed dumplings by the time we hit the road south, known as the Million Dollar Highway; according to some locals, the name doesn't refer to its construction price tag of $1,000 per foot but to the gold found in the gravel used to pave it. We twist and turn up to Red Mountain Pass at 11,018 feet, with visions of snowcapped Twilight and Sunlight Peaks set off by a crystalline blue sky.
At a vista point, a group of Harley riders are taking pictures alongside us. In the last two days, we've seen at least 100 motorcyclists. That's no surprise, I say, since this is such a beautiful drive. The bikers stare at us: "Then you don't know about the rally?"
Apparently we are the only people on the road who don't know about the year's largest biker rally tomorrow in Durango — just where we are headed.
When we roll in, downtown's Main Avenue is roaring. Bikers two abreast line the road as far as we can see, chrome gleaming. Our sensible four-wheel-drive wagon, packed with water bottles and sunscreen, seems suddenly very tame.
Kate and I find a quiet canyon outside of town on the Colorado Trail, the 500-mile super-hike that cuts across the state. But Sam won't let us avoid the rally entirely. That night she drags us down to Main. The sidewalks are full; every bar is packed. We stop outside the front door of Orio's Roadhouse, where a group of men in leather chaps are smoking.
"I don't think so," Kate says.
"Nonsense," says Sam.
Inside, people aren't so much dancing as stomping about the place. One guy is howling. "This is where I draw the line," Kate says.
Sam uses her non-noodle arms to push Kate and me up to the bar. She slaps down a 20: "Three shots of Jack!"
Kate may have led us up the cliffs and mountains of Colorado so far, but at Orio's, it's Sam who's the sure-footed one. With her, we close the bar.
Durango to Buena Vista
Recently named a national park and preserve, the Great Sand Dunes rise 750 feet above the San Luis Valley in the south-central part of the state. We pull into the visitor center, and I ask a ranger where we go to rent boards.
"Boards?" she asks.
"For dune boarding," I say confidently. "We've come from California to go dune boarding."
"From California, huh?" She laughs at me. "I think there was a guy out here renting boards a few years ago. But he's not here now."
"That's okay," I tell Sam and Kate. "I'm sure we can slide on these camping mats." The mother of invention, I think smugly, stuffing the mats into my pack.
Built up over centuries in a bend at the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the dunes are golden and soft and sinuous. But they are tough to climb; the sand sucks at our feet. We trudge up toward a finely etched spine. One side is gold in the afternoon sun, the other is in shadow.
We plunk down our stuff. I blow up the mats. "This is going to be fun," I say. Sam nods.
I arrange myself on the mat and scoot over the dune's edge. The mat doesn't move.
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