We travelled the 'Million Dollar Highway' from Ouray to Durango yesterday. Fall has arrived and the scenery was wonderful although very cold and showery. We stopped at Silverton (above) for lunch - typical cowboy town with old buildings and wide streets.

 

Today we visited Mesa Verde National Park (a World Heritage Site) where you can see dwellings that were built inside the canyon walls 1400 years ago. They were only discovered by 2 cowboys in 1888.

 

Its hard to imagine how these dwellings could have been built on the sides of these canyon walls.

 

We have seen photos of these dwellings before but to see them close up is absolutely amazing.

 

Today we rode up to Pikes Peak, which has an elevation of 14,100ft. This mountain is famous for holding an annual race for both cars and motorcycles, known as the 'Race to the Clouds'. There are very few barriers along the edge of the road and we watched a YouTube of a car going over the edge (same corner as in the 4th photo below). Luckily the guy climbed out unscathed after rolling down quite a long way and completely destroying his car.
At the top there were frequent loud hailer messages advising people to travel down in a low gear and half way down there is a mandatory stop for cars to have their brakes checked to ensure they are not running too hot!  

We left Snowmass Village which was a pretty ski resort approx 7 miles from Aspen. We

followed a scenic route through the Rockies and the below photos were taken over Independence Pass.  We reached an elevation of over 12,000 feet and autumn has arrived at this level with the trees looking beautiful with leaves of orange and yellow.

 

 

 

 

With 7300 miles on the rear tyre it was time to change it. We are now in Grand Junction, Colorado so booked it into the local BMW dealer.

 

Bob & Gloria rode nearly a 1000 miles in 2 days from San Francisco, to meet with us last night.

Above and below, the Colorado Monument. From there we rode one of the scenic routes to Snowmass Village, near Aspen.

 

As we had stayed overnight in Mexican Hat, it was close enough for us to go back to Monument Valley to get the iconic photo in the morning light. 

 

 

This is the famous Mexican Hat Rock that the town is named after.  It is 60 ft high and can be climbed (and 'no' we didn't!)

 

 

Our route to Grand Junction, Colorado, took us via the Upper Colorado River Scenic Byway. More amazing scenery.