Fall Trip #2

 I was pretty darn excited when Glenn asked me if I wanted to see more fall colors - of course!!  I would never turn that down!  I knew that he had an ulterior motive in checking out another area to hunt but that's OK - we could accomplish both items!

We decided we would just take the car this time - 3 of the passes we wanted to see were not ATV friendly anyway - so we took off on a Monday morning - got our coffee in Johnson Village - and headed to Marshall Pass via Poncha Springs.  The gravel road is in pretty good shape and the road eventually takes you to Sargents.

Our first stop was overlooking O'Haver Lake - it's a beautiful lake even when it's not autumn!

The colors didn't disappoint at all!  This has always been one of my favorite spots to see the leaves!

So we're riding along and all of a sudden we hear a pop and the car registers a tire going flat - there happened to be a large pull off right about there so we pulled over and sure enough, Glenn had hit something and there was a nice hole in the sidewall!!  He informed me a hole in the sidewall basically ruins the tire - and we had just put 4 new tires on 3 weeks ago - oh gosh!!

Glenn gets the donut tire on while we discuss what we do - go back home or head on into Gunnison and try to find a tire - since we had already contacted friends in Gunnison to meet us for lunch, we decided to go ahead and head to Gunnison!

There was a tire shop right at the edge of town so we pulled in and they said it was a rare tire (how can that be - it's a Ford Explorer!!) but they had one!  So leave the tire and come back in an hour and it should be ready!

We headed to our friends' house and we all went out for lunch and a lot of visiting!  Afterwards we headed back to the tire shop, only to find out their tire did NOT work.  So they suggested another place and we went there.  Yes, they had one that would work - $120 cash or a whole lot more if it had to go on a credit card - YIKES!!  Luckily I always keep money hidden in my billfold for emergencies and we just barely had enough!

Again, it was an hour wait so we headed to a park and just relaxed - still had to wait another 1/2 hour when we returned but at least we got it taken care of!  By this time, it's getting to be mid-afternoon and we decided to head to our destination for the night, Paonia, instead of doing Keebler Pass - we could do it on the way home!

Paonia was an interesting town - it seemed a lot of the "shops" weren't on Main Street but on side streets!  We found our place for the night - a B and B Glenn had found online which of course served breakfast which is always a plus!  I warned him there wouldn't be a TV but he was OK with that.

The place was an old hotel from the late 1800's and it was darling inside!  Completely renovated of course and we had chosen to be on the top floor in the Honeysuckle Room - all of the rooms had fruit and flower names!

I had researched restaurants and found only ONE that was open in town on a Monday night - but the owner of the hotel said there was another one just out of town - it was an orchard and had outside seating so we chose to go there.  It was a lovely setting with beautiful views outside - after a quick dinner we headed back to the hotel as we were both tired from our stressful day!

Our room was cute as could be - very old fashioned looking and small but a modern bathroom so it was all great!

Hopefully day 2 was going to be fantastic!