Day 14: Million Dollar Highway

Here I am writing about yesterdays ride on Thursday, July 27th. I will try to get these posts present soon. (Same day of ride post). The ride was spectacular! A ride I was really looking forward to as part of this trip, the Million Dollar highway that runs from Ouray, CO to Durango. Very challenging and even more so because of some wet patches. Again, Colorado scenery is awe inspiring. There are two explanations of how the San Juan Highway got this nickname. One is how much it cost to build because of the terrain. The other because it’s rumored that there was gold buried beneath the roadway, since this was a mining area. In any case it started off right away with climbing into higher altitude right out of Ouray. That comprised a little less than half of my day on the road. The other half was through Navajo nation, completely different, terrain, as I left Colorado and entered New Mexico. Flat desert, and very warm. Gallup, New Mexico is where I intersected the historic Route 66. This was the original highway that ran between Chicago and Santa Monica. I’ll be following that route roughly from Gallup to Santa Monica with some stops along route 66, but mainly on interstate on Friday.

I logged 252 miles with running total now 3503 miles.

The initial climb out of Ouray on Million Dollar Highway.