Today was going to be a long day of over 500 miles. In addition to the number of miles, the first half of the day would be through mountain passes where the average speed is low. We got up at 6 AM. Looking at the weather report, there was rain up in the mountains to the north. Neither of us was thrilled at the prospect of riding through the mountains in the rain. Jon less than I.
Having made most of our preparations the night before, we had the bikes loaded and ready to go about 6:45. In a strange turn of events Jon was interested in having breakfast. He said he was craving bacon. Never being one to turn down breakfast myself, it didn't take a whole lot of convincing.
There was a grocery store across the street that looked like it had a deli attached. Lots of times stores like these have a small restaurant area where one can get something to eat. We walked across the street, but quickly figured out this wasn't one of those kinds of stores. So we walked back to our bikes. I went over to the hotel office and checked out, and while I was there asked about somewhere nearby that served breakfast. They recommended the Doughworks, which I remember seeing the previous evening about a mile down the street.
We rode down and found the restaurant. We ordered and the food arrived fairly quickly, for which I was grateful. I got a vegetarian omlette with pancakes on the side. The waitress asked if I wanted the half omlette or the full. I opted for the half, which turned out to be a good decision because it filled the plate. I can only imagine how huge the full omlette would have been.
We ate our food, and then prepared to hit the road. I had originally kind of wanted to leave at 6. Jon negotiated the time to 7. We actually left town around 7:30. There were still some dark clouds in the distance, but I'm guessing the later departure time probably helped us avoid hitting some bad weather.
The first leg of the day's journey was north up highway 550, which is also known as the "Million Dollar Highway." There is some debate about why it is called this, some saying that's what the highway originally cost to build, some saying it's because the views are worth a million dollars and others saying it came from when gold was discovered in the area in the late 1800s. I'm guessing the last reason it probably the most accurate.
It was a chilly morning. We were wearing every piece of cold weather gear we had brought on this trip. As we headed up the mountain pass the temps dropped even further and was probably down in the low 40s in places.
We hit more construction. Due to the nature of mountain passes, they couldn't just detour us around the repair work. So whenever the road had a lane shut down there was usually a line of cars waiting for the pilot vehicle to guide them through. Thankfully this was a shorter stretch of construction and we only had to wait about 10 minutes. Seeing as we were going to be sitting on the motorcycles most of the day, I got off the bike and was standing while we were waiting. I figured I should stretch my legs whenever I got the chance. As soon as the pilot car returned but before traffic started moving, the girl running the stop sign started yelling at me to get on my bike. Not sure why she was in such a panic about it. Despite her freaking out, I took my time. I was still mounted and had the bike running before the line of cars started moving. Weird.
As so often I encounter in scenic roads that are great for riding motorcycle, the very thing that makes them fun to ride is also what makes it difficult to stop and snap pictures. You're having so much fun riding the road that you don't want to pull over. Or you see something breathtaking but before you can react it's already gone. Still, I tried to capture some photos when I could.
After about an hour and a half we reached the little town of Silverton. We were needing a restroom break, and the weather was cold enough that a few minutes of warmth would feel good. When we pulled in it was pretty obvious that we had just come in behind the rain storms we'd seen on radar earlier that morning. The roads were wet, and the dirt parking lot was pretty saturated.
After a few minutes to recoup, we hit the road again. The next stretch of highway between Silverton and Ouray were some of the most scenic I've ever ridden. Here's where a Go-pro or similar type camera would have come in handy, as there was just way too much pretty scenery to photograph all of it.
There must have either been a Jeep convention of some sort, or this is normally a popular spot for Jeep enthusiasts to visit. Whichever, I saw more Jeeps on this day than any other time in my life.
One thing that was either cool or creepy depending on your point of view was the lack of guard rails, and the sheer height of the cliffs. The road would be heading down hill and then turn left around a corner. However all you could see in front of you as you approached the turn was a drop of several thousand feet. I thought it was cool.
It was along this stretch that Jon had a minor altercation. We were barreling around a turn when suddenly there was a bunch of gravel in our lane, strewn out from the entrance of a side road. I saw the gravel, but then quickly noticed a line I could take around the corner that kept me in my lane but avoided the loose rock. So I came through without much loss of speed.
Jon, following close behind, didn't see the same line that I did. Instead he just saw gravel and had a moment of panic (hey, we've all done it.) So he did a combination of mashing on the brakes and swerving around to try to keep from dumping his bike in the corner. It probably felt worse to him than it actually was, as I usually kept a pretty close eye on him in my rear view mirror and I never saw him having any difficulty.
Silverton and Ouray are only 23 miles apart. However the road is extremely twisty, with lots of 10 and 15 mph curves. Google maps estimated travel time of 45 minutes for this stretch, however once we factored in traffic and wet pavement it took us at least twice this amount of time.
We passed by the Bear Creek Falls. There were quite a few other vehicles stopped in the area, so we decided this must be a scenic area. We pulled over and snapped some more pictures.
We passed through the town of Ouray, which looked like a nice little tourist/resort area. Lots of other people must agree with me because it was pretty busy.
North of Ouray we came out of the mountains and the road straightened out. The 35 miles to the town of Montrose went faster speed-wise, but slower time-perception-wise. It just wasn't as pretty as what we'd been riding through earlier this day.
We arrived in Montrose, around 10:30 AM which was well behind schedule. Originally I had thought this would be a good place for a gas stop, however Jon and I did a little calculating and decided we could make it to Hotchkiss on our current tanks without too much trouble. However, I did need another restroom break and to peel off a layer of clothes, as now that the sun was warming us up. We tried to make our stop quick and get back on the road as fast as possible.
One amusing thing of note, as we were passing through Montrose there was a car wash. Out in front their sign read, "All of our employees trained by Mr. Miyagi." About two weeks later I actually saw a picture of that same sign posted on social media.
From Montrose we headed east on highway 50 towards the Curecanti National Recreation Area. About 10 miles out of town I crested a hill only to discover an idiot heading towards me in my lane. A guy was trying to pass a whole line of cars in one shot, and ran out of room before his passing zone ended. I swerved to the right as he jammed back into his lane between a few cars. I'll say it again: idiot.
Just when we thought we were making good progress, once again we were stopped for road construction. As usual, I got off the bike for a stretch and snapped some photos.
Roughly 30 miles east of Montrose we reached the Blue Mesa Reservoir. This was a manmade dam at the base of the Black Canyon. It was a very pretty area. Here we headed north on highway 92.
This highway turned into a hidden gem. In my research of good motorcycle roads in Colorado, this one didn't really pop up on any of the lists I read about. I found it by looking at the map and trying to find a way from Montrose up to the interstate that wasn't much of a straight line. This road looked pretty windy and interesting, so I worked it into our route.
Well, boy I'm glad I did. This was a great road. Incredible views. Twists and turns. Hardly any other traffic. It was 50 miles of wonderful riding.
We pulled into Hotchkiss and found a gas station. Jon was opting to skip lunch and just hammer on down the road, but I needed a break. We compromised and decided just to eat a little something at the restaurant. After fueling up I parked the bike and removed my jacket and chaps. The temps were well into the 90s now and I was broiling, especially once stopped.
I went into the gas station. I bought a slice of pizza and a large coffee. Jon grabbed some food too. We ate, and I reviewed my map. We were still running late, so I was hoping to make up some time after lunch. I wanted to get to Denver in time to enjoy an evening there.
Once I was done eating, I re-applied sunscreen. I was really trying to be diligent about sunblock on this trip, and for the most part I was successful at avoiding any burns. While I did that, Jon made a phone call.
He was still hearing a noise from his motorcycle, so he called the Harley dealership back in Sioux Falls and spoke to the service department. He tried to describe what the noise sounded like, and of course they told him it probably was a transmission bearing. That made him extremely paranoid.
I tried to belay his fears as much as possible. I couldn't hear anything from his bike, and even if it was a bearing usually before they turn into an issue they'll get so loud there's no question that something is wrong. Nevertheless, Jon was worried. However, there wasn't a Harley dealership for quite a large radius from Hotchkiss, so there wasn't anything we could do about it right then. We had no real choice but to press onward.
By now it was a little after 1 PM. In my planning I had hoped we'd have been on the interstate at this point in the day, or at least close to it. Instead, we were 75 miles and nearly two hours behind "schedule." I toyed with the idea of modifying our route, and heading north on highway 133 directly up to Glenwood Springs. This would have shortened the day by 55 miles and probably an hour of ride time.
In retrospect, knowing what we would encounter later this day it may have been the wise choice to alter the route. However, hindsight is always 20/20. For whatever reason I decided to stick with our original plan. We headed west on highway 92 out of Hotchkiss. I hoped that we could push the pace a bit once we hit the interstate and make it to Denver at a reasonable hour.
The scenery to the west of Hotchkiss is nothing to write home about. So instead, I'm writing to the internet about it.
It was about 15 miles from Hotchkiss to the junction of highway 65 where we turned and headed north. In my mind I thought this stretch was only supposed to be about 7 or 8 miles. When we hit the 10 mile mark I started to worry that maybe I missed the intersection. I was getting the urge to turn back, but resisted. I decided to not panic until we reached the town of Delta, because by that point it would be certain that we missed the intersection.
Well, my worry was unwarranted. Just at the edge of Delta we came to the intersection and turned north.
The first thing I noticed was how busy traffic was on this stretch of road. There were a lot of vehicles and the highway was moving slow. This didn't bode well for us catching up on our schedule. However, once we got 10 miles up the road to the north of the town of Cedaredge traffic lightened up.
We then entered the Grand Mesa National Forest. Scenery got a lot more interesting again as we climbed up the mountain and rode through the tree lined hills. We came around one corner and encountered some grazing cattle that had spilled out on to the road so we stopped to let them clear out of the way.
As we gained altitude the temps got noticeably colder. I kept toying with pulling over to put on a jacket, but I knew it was buried in my luggage and it wouldn't be a quick one minute stop to dig it out. I also knew that we'd be coming back down the other side of the mountain before we reached Mesa, so I just grit my teeth and pressed onward.
On the north side of the forest before we began our descent was some of the most breathtaking scenery of the day. I wish I had stopped to take a picture as there were spots where road dropped off the edge over a cliff that was several thousand feet up. As I've already mentioned, it was impossible to get a picture of every cool thing we saw on this trip, but this was one spot in particular I wish I had photographed.
We came down the mountain and sure enough the temp rose back up into the 90s. If not hotter. It was blazing. Just north of Mesa we took a right turn onto county road 45 1/2. This was our last stretch before we would get to the interstate.
This little chunk of road was pretty cool. It was very twisty, so our average speed was under 30 mph, which didn't help my "I want to get there" mood, but now looking back on the trip I can really appreciate this road. I didn't know the road would be scenic, I just picked it out because it looked like a shortcut from the town of Mesa up to the interstate. It was a happy accident.
There was some commercial activity on this road. It looked like gravel pits or some other kind of mining going on. As a result, there was some loose rock on the road. Thankfully the nature of the road was that we couldn't ride very fast anyway, so it wasn't really an issue.
It was nearly 3 PM when we finally reached the interstate. We still had a hair over 200 miles until we would get to our hotel in Denver. We would need at least one more stop for gas. My original hopes were that we could arrive around 5 PM. Now I would be happy if we could get there by seven, but even that seemed unlikely.
Once we were on the interstate we dialed up the speed. The speed limit was 70, and we held about 75. Lots of cars were passing us so I didn't feel reckless traveling a little bit over the limit.
As we passed Rifle, CO, the temp was right at 95 degrees. I could feel the heat from my engine pouring out from under the gas tank. Cars would pass me and I could see their occupants sitting inside air conditioned comfort, but I could feel the heat from their vehicles. It gave me a new appreciation for how hard engines work, especially as we would climb up some of the hills. It felt brutal with the sun beating down on us.
Usually I don't care for riding on the interstate. It's nice for getting from point A to point B quickly, but typically if you're interested in seeing interesting things it's not the optimum choice. However, I-70 across western Colorado is an exception. This was a very pretty ride despite being part of the "super slab." There were many spots where the speed limit dropped because of the curves, and lots of areas where the opposite lane wasn't visible because it was routed through a different spot in the canyon.
The heat was oppressing, my body was aching from the miles and my mind was tired from the hours of travel. However, now a new concern was looming. In the east we could see the sky getting very dark. This wasn't an, "oh, there may be rain ahead" kind of dark. This was a "holy cow, do we really want to ride into this?" kind of dark.
As we got closer to Vail the traffic became heavier and moved faster. However the storm was getting closer too. The winds were picking up. Car headlights were starting to turn themselves on as the sensors decided it was dark enough to warrant them. This wasn't looking good. I had been hoping that maybe the storm was moving laterally and by the time we reached it we may just skirt the edge. Now it appeared we were going to ride square into the middle of the thing.
We were in need of a gas stop. While we could have gone a bit farther up the road I decided that it was inevitable that we were going to get wet. We pulled over at exit 163 just west of Vail and topped off our tanks.
After we filled up, we rode over and parked the bikes. I ran inside for a restroom break and bought a snack. Being behind schedule, time was a concern. At the same time I really needed off the bike for a few minutes. As I ate my snack (cookies) I was mentally weighing our options.
Do we hole up here for a while and wait for the storm to pass? If we did, how long would we have to wait? If we head into it, how bad would it get? These and other questions weighed heavy on my mind.
It still wasn't raining where we were at, but could see lightning and hear thunder coming from the direction we were traveling. It was certain that we would soon be wet. We went ahead and put our rain gear on. Then we decided that we might as well try and push on through the storm. We figured we could just as well make the choice to wait it out a few miles up the road as we could sitting here.
So we pulled out to continue our journey. I am not making this up when I say that 300 yards later as we turned onto the on-ramp the rain hit.
And "hit" isn't an exaggeration. It suddenly came down in sheets. I couldn't see much of anything in front of me. I had changed into my clear glasses, but despite this visibility was at near zero. My windshield was nothing but a blur of rain drops obscuring anything viewed through it. If I stuck my head up above the windshield in an attempt to see, it felt like I was getting hit with a fire hose right in the face. Lightning was flashing and thunder cracking all around us. The wind was blowing so hard it was difficult to keep the bike pointed in the right direction.
Now the sensible thing would be to pull over. Believe me, I would have if I could have. This section of the interstate was undergoing construction so instead of a shoulder there were concrete barriers on either side of the two lanes. Pulling over wasn't an option. Despite the blinding rain, cars hadn't slowed down much. I was quite worried that we were going to get run down from behind. I slowed as much as I dared, but dropping below 45 mph seemed like a death wish. Not that staying above 45 mph wasn't a death wish in these conditions either.
Later that evening when I caught the news I would see that this storm system made the national headlines. It produced lots of flooding, tornados and even enough hail to kill farm animals. It's probably a good thing I didn't know this information at the time.
I can't speak for Jon, but I was in full-on panic. I knew there was no way we could continue very far in these conditions. I decided that I would take the next exit ramp where we could pull over and hope that this storm would blow over.
The next exit was only four miles down the road. But it felt like 40. Even now looking at the map I can see how short a distance it is, but my mind is unable to accept that it is only four miles. The storm was so intense it made four miles a very formidable trek. Then as we approached I discovered something for which I hadn't accounted: the exit was closed due to construction.
My heart rate is increasing as I type this and remember that sinking feeling that ran through my body. It's like a part of me just gave up, like a drowning victim when they realize there's nothing further they can do and just start the wait for death. At that moment in time I didn't think the odds were in our favor that we would get through this storm without incident. It would be another four miles to the next exit. I really wasn't sure we were going to make it.
Then two things happened. First, I saw two other motorcycles in front of us. This was strangely reassuring. It gave me something to focus on. I could watch them and as long as they were keeping their bikes upright it gave me hope that I could do the same. Keeping my brain trained on them helped calm me down.
The second thing that happened was about two miles further down the road the rain lightened. It was still coming down steady, but it wasn't any longer a blinding deluge. In fact, when we reached the next exit I decided that if the two bikes in front of us could continue on, so could we.
Now as I'd mentioned, before we left for our trip my tires were towards the end of their useful life. When deciding that I'd try and eek out one more trip from the set, I knew that I would be gambling that we wouldn't hit much rain. Well, I definitely lost that gamble. By this point in the trip my tires had some visible tread left, but they were probably less than 1/8" remaining in depth. As a result, hydroplaning became a big concern of mine.
The best way to minimize the risk of hydroplaning was to go slower. The bikes in front of us were holding about 45 mph, which was fine by me. At this point I wasn't as worried about arriving on time as much as I was worried about arriving at all.
The next best way to minimize the risk of hydroplaning was to try and avoid the water as much as possible. The entire road was wet and the rain was still coming down steady so it wasn't possible to avoid it altogether. However, each side of the lane where the tires of vehicles normally travel were worn and contained at least a 1/4" more water than the center portion of the lane. So I tried to ride up on the peak of the lane as much as possible. When rain first starts the peak of the lane is the slickest area as that's where all the oil and road debris collects. I reasoned that by this point the heavy rain had probably washed most of that away.
So I was maintaining an even keel for the time being. The rain was falling, but we were holding a modest pace and no longer seemed to be in imminent danger. Cars were passing us regularly on the left, but we didn't care.
As we came through the central part of Vail, I had my next "incident." As I was watching the bikes in front of me I saw that the road suddenly dipped sharply. On a dry day this would have caused the bike quickly to drop down and then back up, like one of the final little hills on a roller coaster. I might have even evoked a, "wheeee!" as I traversed this low spot.
On an extremely wet day such as this, however, things were different. There was probably at least six inches of water in this dip. I saw the bikes ahead go through it, and I knew there was nothing I could do. I hit the river of water flowing through this dip and was met with a surprisingly large amount of water splashing directly upward at an impressive rate of speed. I was wearing my rain gear, however it's designed to repel water falling in a downward direction. When water comes upward I learned that it is remarkably ineffective. The bike slid around a bit from the tires losing traction in the deep water, but the biggest outcome was I now was very, very wet underneath my rain gear.
As we continued east out of Vail the rain continued to fall as we climbed higher and higher in elevation. The rain lessened even more, but was still coming down. The bikes in front of us picked up their pace, but with my tires I wasn't comfortable going any faster so we stayed in the 45-50 mph range. Jon said that he could see me sliding around occasionally when we passed over rough road surfaces.
Along with the altitude change came a drop in temperatures. It got pretty darn cold. I was quite wet under my rain gear and was feeling chilly, but was maintaining. Jon, however, was in dire straits because he hadn't put on any gloves when we last stopped. The temps were in the 90s back then so he hadn't thought about it. Now it was in the 40s and he was in agony.
Riding a hundred feet in front of him and focusing on keeping my bike upright in the rain, I was unaware of duress he was in. Somewhere around Vail Pass (10,500 feet) Jon couldn't take it any longer. He spotted an exit ramp up ahead and decided he needed to stop. He raced ahead up on my right side, pointed to the ramp and veered off.
Unfortunately, I didn't have the luxury of just leaning the bike over and taking the ramp gracefully. I tried to slow down as much as I could and make the turn, but I could feel the rear tire losing bite. I wound up panic stopping over on the shoulder, then cutting across a small section of grass before I could head down the ramp to join him.
While Jon put on gloves, I got off the bike to stretch. Almost an hour had passed since we first hit the storm. The stress of this section of the ride was near overwhelming. I just had to stand there for a couple minutes and try to clear my head.
We discussed our situation. Jon was fine with continuing our current pace, which made me happy. As long as the road was wet I wasn't interested in going any faster than 50 mph. And there was significantly more water in the passing lane, so I was also content with letting all the other vehicles go around us.
It was now 5:15. We still had 80 or so miles to go. At this point it was likely most of our evening in Denver wasn't going to amount for much more than sitting in the hotel room. Which was a bit depressing. I decided I had bit off more than we could easily chew when planning today's route.
We headed back out onto the interstate. We descended down the mountain, then began the long climb back up to where the Eisenhower tunnel was located. At this point the trucks around us were struggling noticeably to pull their loads up the hill. Even at our slow speed we were forced to pass them. I tried to wait for gaps in traffic before pulling into the left lane so I wouldn't back up the cars who were running the full 70 mph.
I was surprised by the number of trucks I saw pulled over with steam pouring from their engines. I would think that hauling loads across this stretch of interstate would be common and that the trucks wouldn't have as much difficulty as they seemed to be enduring.
After what seemed like an eternity we reached a landmark: the Eisenhower Tunnel. I had gone through this tunnel back during my 2007 trip to Colorado. Jon had never been through it. This time I would be riding it in the opposite direction.
The novelty of the tunnel was someone lessened by a more practical factor: the road inside the tunnel was dry. For a couple miles I felt like I could relax a bit and enjoy the ride as I wasn't being rained upon.
But after what seemed to be far too short of time span, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. It was in the literal sense, not the normal figurative way we usually hear that phrase. I braced myself for the rain that I knew was waiting for us once we emerged.
We came out of the tunnel and...
Nothing.
There was no rain coming down. It was really weird. The road was still wet, but there wasn't any new moisture falling from the sky. I'm not sure if it was due to the terrain interacting with the storm, or what. In any event, I was thankful. 60 miles of rain was enough.
The further east we travelled the drier the roads got. As a correlation, our speeds increased as well. There were a few spots I felt light sprinkles for about 30 seconds, but we would pass through them. By the time we finally reached the outskirts of Denver we were back to full speed along with the rest of traffic.
Once we hit the city, though, the wet road surfaces returned. The rain wasn't falling, but it was obvious it had passed through shortly before we arrived. At this point though, we were close enough that it didn't bother me too much.
At long last (around 7 PM) we reached our hotel. The Motel 6. It wasn't fancy, but at this point we didn't care. We were tired. We were wet. We were cold. Not necessarily in that order. Well, maybe it was in that order. I don't know, but regardless, we made it to the hotel which on this day seemed to be accomplishment enough.
When I originally was doing the trip planning, I had picked Denver as our destination for a couple of reasons. The biggest was that it provided a good launch point for the next two day's journey. But the secondary reason was I had hoped to get to the city in time to do a few things. One of them was to eat at the Casa Bonita restaurant. The other was to visit Lakeside Amusement Park.
It was late enough in the evening that I realized that doing both of these activities wasn't going to happen. Couple that with Jon still being off his sleep schedule and not feeling up to an amusement park, and we scratched that activity off the list. Bummer. I was wanting to ride the Wild Chipmunk.
However, the Casa Bonita was still in the realm of possibility. I suggested to Jon that we could quick unload our stuff and still make it to the restaurant in time. I'm guessing he would have been perfectly fine with staying in the room and ordering delivery food, but he appeased me and agreed.
We took our gear up to the room and where possible made a quick clothing swap into dryer duds. I say, "where possible" because I had brought a pair of tennis shoes packed in my bag, so I switched into those. It was nice to have dry feet again. Jon hadn't packed an extra pair of shoes though, so he had to put his wet boots back on. Bummer.
The room did have a rather pronounced odor, like someone had poured out gallons of Lysol. Probably to kill the smell from the meth pots.
We went back out to the bikes and rode the 5.5 miles or so through town to the Casa Bonita. The clouds still looked a bit threatening and there was lightning in the distance, but I was hoping that we were just seeing the back side of the storm that had rolled through earlier.
When we arrived the parking lot was packed. I thought maybe late on a Tuesday evening it would have quieted down, but obviously this wasn't the case. We rode around the parking lot and eventually found a spot on the other end.
Jon had never been to the Casa Bonita before. In fact, he'd never even heard of it. This would be my 4th visit. If you're unfamiliar with it, it's a little hard to explain. Yes, it's a restaurant. However you don't really go there for the food. In fact the food is pretty mediocre. However, the experience is unlike any other restaurant I've eaten at.
From the outside it's a bit different looking, but nothing compared to what the inside contains. It's located in the corner of a strip mall. The facade in front of the restaurant is markedly different from that of the rest of the mall, though. The first thing that jumps out is the large tower with the gold dome, and decidedly Spanish architecture. Greeting you upon arrival is a garden area with a fountain out front.
Inside the doors we found there was still a sizable line. We took our spot and waited. It moved along at a steady pace and probably took about 1/2 an hour before we were handed trays with our food. Where the line forms you can't see inside the eating area. I think Jon was really wondering what kind of a place I had drug him to.
Because I'm a pig I ordered the "all you can eat deluxe chicken dinner." Jon was leaning towards something else, but finally ordered the same thing because it was cheaper than the fajitas he was considering. After you order there's more line waiting, and finally you get up to where they hand you a tray for your food. Then you carry your tray around a corner and wait in another line to be seated.
Now that we were in, I will attempt to describe the Casa Bonita which is not as easy as it sounds. It is divided up into sections, with various seating areas taking on different decor. There's a cabana section with palm trees. There's a Spanish villa area. There's a tropical oasis section. There's an underground mine section. There's a medieval banquet room section. There's a cave section. There's probably a few other sections I've missed. There are Mariachi performers. In the middle of the restaurant is a 30 foot waterfall with a pool at the bottom. Divers make leaps from different spots off the waterfall. There are humorous skits that are performed at various intervals.
I'm really not doing it much justice. You need to visit and experience it for yourself. Like I said earlier, you don't go for the food, you go for the atmosphere.
We were seated near the waterfall. Despite me telling myself I was going to show some restraint, I had two huge platefuls of food. Plus sopapillas. I took a few pictures but the room was rather dark and my camera doesn't have a flash.
After we ate we walked around a bit exploring different parts of the building. It's over 50k square feet, so there's lots of little nooks and crannies to look at. When we were getting ready to leave the diver was doing the last performance of the evening, so we watched that from the lower pool area.
We left the restaurant and headed back to the motel using the same route we came. We did make a stop to fill up our gas tanks. I also bought a newspaper, not for reading but so we could use it to stuff our wet boots. Newspaper is actually pretty effective in drying out wet shoes.
Back in our room, we didn't last too long before we turned out the light. I called my family while Jon showered. My son's 2nd day of golf tryouts didn't go very well and he didn't want to talk to anyone, so I just spoke with my wife.
After I hung up I did my map for the next day, then showered and hit the sack. The bed was pretty bad, but it was warm and dry which was gladly welcomed.
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This page last updated on 06/28/2018