OFMC 2024: Making A Short Day Longer
Thursday, August 15th, 2024Leaving Durango on this year’s OFMC trip we had originally planned to ride down to Mesa Verde National Park where we were to spend the night at the Far View Lodge, the very cool old lodge inside the park. It was a treat I was looking forward to but Bill had announced he would not be going there with us and we ended up cutting that night out and moving everything else up.
That left us leaving Durango with the day’s destination of . . . Ignacio. Eighteen miles away. OK, let’s see what we can figure out here.
Because this whole trip was planned as a tourist trip, with us stopping at attractions and doing things that tourists do and that we generally haven’t, we had on our plan for the day leaving Ignacio to make a stop at Chimney Rock National Monument. I suggested that we head east on US 160, then turn back west at CO 151, which runs right by the monument before leading us directly on to Ignacio. Make it about a 100-mile day. The guys thought that sounded good.
The ride out US 160 was very nice as the entire state seems to have stayed green much later in the summer this year than usual. Really, really beautiful. We made the turn and were soon at Chimney Rock.
Chimney Rock National Monument is one of the newest national monuments in the country. It’s new enough that other times we have been past it it has not even been open yet to the public. Now it is but there’s still not a lot to it in terms of infrastructure.
First off we had to go in on a gravel road, and everyone knows how Bill feels about riding on gravel. He wasn’t thrilled but it was only a quarter mile. We got to the visitor center area and it is in such an early phase that the ranger did not have an actual visitor center, he was sitting there under an open tent talking to people and handing out literature. Besides restrooms the only structure was one building that was split with one half being a museum and the other half a gift shop.
It’s a good museum, though, and I found out a whole lot I had not known about the place. I’ve seen the rocks that give the place its name many times passing by and had assumed the monument was all about the rocks. And I thought making it a national monument for the rocks was a bit of a stretch.
In fact, it’s an archaeological site and up on the mesa above there are pueblos that are pretty well preserved. With the gravel road we were not going to ride up to the pueblos, plus it was a pretty hot day and we were in the middle of the heat. The ranger said they do have a shuttle going up for those who don’t want to drive but we passed. I’ll do that some other time when I’m out that way with Judy. Bill seemed positively disinterested and I didn’t know how Dennis felt about it.
So we saw what there was to see and then headed on to Ignacio. Even after our detour it was far too early to check into our rooms at the Sky Ute Casino Resort but they have a very good restaurant where we had lunch and then there was the gambling. This was one place where arriving early was not an inconvenience.
Biker Quote for Today
With the throttle’s roar, I ignite the adventure on the road.