A Small Change of Plans

We left Heber City and headed south to Montrose, CO to another of our favorite campgrounds, Centennial.  We lucked out this time and got a site on an end with no one in front or beside us with an amazing view.

 

We are quite fond of Montrose and the surrounding area, Ridgway, Ouray, even Telluride are right down the road, Black Canyon of Gunnison is nearby, and Last Dollar Road.  But one of the first things we had to do was go to Gnarly Tacos in Ridgway for their amazing tacos!

Beans, they call them Whistleberries:-)
Ahi on the top and Korean BBQ on the bottom

Ahi, pork belly, and fish

Eclectic and delicious!

I related earlier of our travails with the cruise control, sometimes doesn't work, sometime works for a few minutes, and sometimes works for 300 miles?????  We replaced the controller, same results, so we decided to replace the clock spring, and like so many projects it was a 30 minute expectation that evolved into several days.  You have to pull the steering wheel to get to the clock spring, we had replaced it one time many years ago and had used a cheapo puller jury rigged with some angle bolts, but this time it wouldn't budge.

You can see the two angles in the hub, they just straightened out

So that found me looking around for a decent steering wheel puller, and after 3 auto parts stores followed up with a hardware store we finally got the wheel off.  By the way a clock spring is what allows you to turn the wheel and still operate lights, wipers, cruise etc, no matter where you turn it.  Pretty clever actually.

Inside the clock spring

The new in my hands, the old on the top of the column

But the bad news is, it didn't fix the problem, now what?  I'm trying to work on that now:-(

Enjoyed some beautiful sunsets.

Next was Last Dollar Road, a fairly famous drive through incredible mountains, forests, and fields starting just south of Ridgway and ending at Telluride, it is a fairly rough 4X4 road, but worth it, a real favorite of ours, especially in the fall.

Started it off with a shot of a house used in the filming of True Grit, with John Wayne.

It was a beautiful fall day with a touch of snow on the peaks.

And our view for coffee with snow showers over the peaks

Ha, then back for another round of tacos before our next ride.

A fish and a shrimp

2 fish and a chicken

This time we went up over Owl Creek Pass, 10,114', then by Silver Jack Reservoir, almost empty, over to Cimarron, then had coffee overlooking some of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.

Jan took this picture, Black Canyon terrifies me, it is so deep, 2,722', and so steep and sheer, so I do everything I can do to stay away from it, but if heights don't bother you it is amazing:-)

As for the slight change of plans.  We had planned after Montrose to go to our "secret boon docking" spot near Clear Creek Falls, unfortunately there has been huge flooding that closed Wolf Creek Pass, and parts of Pagosa Springs so our route from our spot to our next stop in Durango was impacted, and also the forecast of highs in the low 40's and lows in the 20's didn't seem all that inviting, so the two situations changed our route to go directly to Durango where we are now.