Salida, CO -- Day #2
Today, we got up around 8 am and had a lovely continental breakfast here at the Silver Ridge. Mike loved the mini-sticky buns, and they were indeed, yumalicious. A bit about Silver Ridge Lodge. It's a "family owned" place that reminds us of those old travel lodges in the 60s you'd pull into in the old station wagon with "wooden" panels and five kids in the back. It's been remodeled, so it's really nice... very clean. Big rooms, with windows on both sides. The little windows at the back of the room and in the bathroom face this lovely meadow in the back of the hotel... it's breezy and there are aspens all around us. They sound so relaxing when the leaves blow in the breeze. The place is owned by what I think are a Russian couple, probably in their late 40s. Looks like their daughters are doing the maid service work. Pretty cool to support a locally-owned business. :-)
After breakfast, we headed over Poncha pass to go on a 10-mile loop on our bikes at a place called Marshall Pass going past O'Haver Lake -- lots of camping and fishing... it was a pretty easy trail. I'm not even sure that I would call it "mountain biking" -- on the way up, it was a dirt road, and then on the way down, a wide single-track. It was beautiful up there, though, and because we were at about 7,000 feet going up in elevation to about 8,000, it was cooler. Here are some pictures of our adventure today -- they're a little odd because we took them with my camera phone, but I guess they did all right.
Here we are, the happy bikers:
Mike enjoying some shade...
Me with lovely peak in the background...
Here's Mike in a beautiful aspen grove. I'm telling you, I don't need a Tiffany diamond. All I need is the way the Aspen leaves almost seem to twinkle in the sun when the breeze runs through them. Ahhhh.
A pretty mountain peak...
Foothills, covered in trees...
Here's O'Haver Lake...
And a closer shot of O'Haver...(the breeze was so cool near the lake!)
The view from the parking lot...
Strangely, one of Mike's coworkers, Jerry, and his wife Millie are actually down here in Salida this weekend, too. So, after Mike is done with his nap (he's snoring softly in the other bed... after a year and a half of marriage, I think sleeping in the same bed becomes less important! ;-) ), we're going to head into downtown and have a couple drinks with them, I think. Then we get to venture out to dinner somewhere... I'm thinking of Bongo Billy's!
After breakfast, we headed over Poncha pass to go on a 10-mile loop on our bikes at a place called Marshall Pass going past O'Haver Lake -- lots of camping and fishing... it was a pretty easy trail. I'm not even sure that I would call it "mountain biking" -- on the way up, it was a dirt road, and then on the way down, a wide single-track. It was beautiful up there, though, and because we were at about 7,000 feet going up in elevation to about 8,000, it was cooler. Here are some pictures of our adventure today -- they're a little odd because we took them with my camera phone, but I guess they did all right.
Here we are, the happy bikers:
Mike enjoying some shade...
Me with lovely peak in the background...
Here's Mike in a beautiful aspen grove. I'm telling you, I don't need a Tiffany diamond. All I need is the way the Aspen leaves almost seem to twinkle in the sun when the breeze runs through them. Ahhhh.
A pretty mountain peak...
Foothills, covered in trees...
Here's O'Haver Lake...
And a closer shot of O'Haver...(the breeze was so cool near the lake!)
The view from the parking lot...
Strangely, one of Mike's coworkers, Jerry, and his wife Millie are actually down here in Salida this weekend, too. So, after Mike is done with his nap (he's snoring softly in the other bed... after a year and a half of marriage, I think sleeping in the same bed becomes less important! ;-) ), we're going to head into downtown and have a couple drinks with them, I think. Then we get to venture out to dinner somewhere... I'm thinking of Bongo Billy's!