Aug 6, Day 42

Hartsel to Salida, CO - Distance - 50.5, Avg speed - 8.6mph

Our tamales were so delicious and our conversations with the owners, Stan and Dorothy so interesting, we decide to go back for breakfast (not to mention there is nowhere else in town to eat and we desperately need to use their restroom as we can’t really dig poop holes in the community centre lawn!).

We are there at 7am on the dot and tuck into veggie burritos. As we are the only customers at that time, we start chatting to Stan and Dorothy, who tell us how they started the business and how their fame has developed so that they are now going to be featured on the “The Food Network” channel in the fall! They are both in their 70s but look much younger. Their work ethic is amazing, the place is open every day in the year bar 4, and Stan also runs his own trucking business to boot. Stan, being a trucker, figured out how to build Dorothy’s kitchen to bypass all the burgeoning regulations – he built it in a truck trailer with wheels still attached so it doesn’t qualify as commercial premises! We learn that Hartsel has bad tap water – although it is officially fit to drink, it smells and tastes foul, so that Stan has to fill a 300 gallon water tanker and ship in all their water for cooking from another nearby town.

Unfortunately we are about to miss Hartsel Days, an unmissable event, which is tomorrow. For this, they close the highway 24 at both ends for 10 minutes. There is a small parade, followed by the finale – the town’s 2 fire engines squirt water at each other! Exciting as it sounds, we decide not to stay over another night.

We leave Bill to enjoy what he says has been his best camp site so far for a few more minutes and set off to Salida. When we turn off on the dirt road, there is a curmudgeonly guy in a truck just pulling out, who asks where we are going. When we say Salida, he says ominously, you don’t wanna be going down that road or you’ll find yourselves in places you wish you weren’t! We stare at him in amazement as he pulls off…… what can he mean?

According to the map, we follow the county highway 53 for 20 miles so neither of us really pay much attention to the detailed map instructions, but keep cycling on what we think is the main road. When we arrive at a T junction, we realize that somehow, we have gone wrong, we should have taken a right hand turning about 3 or 4 miles back. Oops! But Numb Stuff figures out a way to get back en route using his GPS although this involves taking a few single tracks and riding through the grass!

We learn that at one time, there were big development plans for the area around Hartsel. Grids of streets were laid out, and all the streets named, but the houses and people never came. The area is just left with the maze of lonely streets and street signs, some with bizarre names.

Once back on the 53, Bill whizzes past again, has a quick chat, and disappears, a freckle on the horizon. The landscape becomes tundra like, with small conifers. There is a long climb up to the watershed divide, the last 2 miles being UK-type gradient hills! Dirtbaby manages to just about climb this without falling off, you know it is steep when your odometer is showing 0mph!

Again, thunder is rumbling around us but we figure we will probably get through over the top before any action. Once at the top, the scenery on the downhill of the fourteen collegiate peaks (Mt Harvard, Mt Yale, etc) is just jaw droppingly beautiful. Hard to keep your eyes on the road, but we must, as there are some huge drop offs should we happen to leave the road!

We arrive at Salida to find lots of no vacancy signs and a message from Bill, saying he has managed to find a room at Mountain Motel. When we catch up with him, we find he has taken the last room there, so we try across the road. There is a long, slow line at the Gateway Inn, and eventually we get to the front to find out there is a classic car show in town this weekend, nearly all motel rooms are sold out but they will let us have one for the princely sum of $150 (inc tax) – take it or leave it. Ouch!

This is the most expensive motel room so far on the trip, even more than Breckenridge, and it isn’t even anything special, I mean - the hot tub is in a shed in the middle of the car park! But we need to rest up and organize ourselves as there will be very few services between here and Del Norte, which is another 3 nights camping away. The staff are so rude and surly here, we immediately decide to pop over the road to book the next night at the Mountain Motel for $50 less!