Oil, air, brake fluid Everything is OK, except the same two cells on the battery are dry again. The bike starts right up, but I don't feel good about the battery. We eat breakfast, and after breakfast I get a long straw and a glass of water from the restaurant to top-off the battery - again. After topping off the battery, we clean up, pack up and check out.
Fill up the bike on our way out of town, and we're off. We head north to Delta on US Delta is Colorado agricultural with small irrigated farms, but after leaving Delta the scenery steadily improves between Delta and Somerset.
By the time we hit Somerset, we're getting back to the Colorado that I'm used to in my mind - high altitude Rocky Mountain scenery: mountains, forests, and small towns. Somerset is a coal-mining town. It reminds me somewhat of similar places in West Virginia, except that the scenery is better in Somerset. Or maybe I should say outside Somerset - the entire town of Somerset is crowded into a rather small area, wherever the builders could find a spot to build on. There's a long coal train being put together at the north edge of town, several big diesel locomotives to haul the train up and over the mountains out of there.
And then we're out of town again. Leaving Somerset, and we climb up to the top of McClure Pass. It's a scenic climb; with the typical pine forests, big mountains, blue sky, and clean air I've come to expect in the Colorado Rockies. And then down the other side of McClure Pass, which is beautiful - the road descends in a series of turns down into a large bowl or "park" in Colorado-speak surrounded by big mountains, and at the bottom of the bowl is the turn-off for Marble.
We go for it. Heading down the road to Marble, and the day is nearly perfect. Blue sky, pine trees, moderate temperatures. We stop at the Bogan Flats campground to use the restrooms there, and afterward I tell Sharon stories about 4WD trips and kayak trips I've taken to this area. The guidebook has dire warnings about that run, but for a kayak it's simply a nice trip assuming there are no trees down.
