Silverton Blues? (10/1/23 Sun)

Love the Dire Straits song (with similar sounding name) and the town in Colorado. Both are a little off beat and edgy. The dual sport riding available around Silverton is spectacular. Even better with a local guide. Thanks so much for your time Josh.

Most of the day was spent chasing Josh through boney trails. Thankfully he patiently waited for me at turn offs. At least he looked patient, he could have been muttering in his helmet about this overly cautious friend of his brother. So may photographic vistas, these will be very interesting to map. Many of the roads have solid rocks poking up through the gravel. Most posted at 20mph. But I was following Josh, and Nate's brother certainly isn't slow. We rode around many off-road vehicles on our travels.

The scenery between photo stops was probably great,but I had to keep both eyes on the road. I was slow but very happy to have always placed my bike on the exact track I wanted.

Before our ride I took a morning walk around town. Lots of pictures as the moon faded and sun broke over the surrounding mountains. Coffee eventually seemed necessary, so I walked main street to the Coffee Bear. Outside was a yellow Strom 650. From the footware it was easy to identify the owner and invite myself to join him. Dana lives in Durango and invited me to stay at his place tonight. He also is making a special dinner tonight and has routes for me to get to Moab. Looking forward to more talks this evening.

After riding back roads around Silverton with Josh I went back to downtown Silverton to locate my luggage sticker and some lunch. The train had just pulled into town,so it was busy. BBQ smelt great last night when I rode into town, but they didn't need the business. So to the end of the row I went. Eating at Kendall Mountain Cafe. The plated food I saw looked yummy. Wrote up the day so far waiting for my waitresses favorite. Cheese steak, cool, I eat that.

Packed up after lunch, thanked Josh and headed first Dana's place in Durango. Nice 50 mile ride to Durango, only half dozen stops for must have photos.

Met Dana, ate a nice lamb dinner he cooked and then he showed me my next few states worth of riding. Wonderful ideas from the Butler maps, and must see sights not on the maps. Places to camp and extra spurs too explore if I have time. Really nice to have his 50 years of riding and over a million miles traveled worth of local knowledge on tap.

Starting my first night of couch surfing after this post. Up and out in the morning and off to Utah. Not necessarily Moab anymore.