We’ve gotten deep into planning for two tours since our excursion in Canada in 2019, one to the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Gaspe Peninsula, and one to Michigan and Wisconsin. Both were stillborn, casualties of COVID. When our recently retired friend Kelly Iniguez approached us about a fall colors tour in Colorado, we were receptive. She says in particular the aspens in late September are spectacular and the weather is usually good.  

We are fully vaccinated against COVID. Colorado is (just) close enough to drive to, thus avoiding being packed into a train or airplane, although we’re going to take three days to do it. We just don’t feel like doing the marathon drives we used to do. For the most part, we’ll be in remote areas of Colorado after tourist season and not having a lot of strange human contact. We’re comfortable with masking – it’s mandatory for most things around here. Starved for action, and despite the rising curve of delta variant COVID cases among the unvaccinated, we decided to go for it.  

The plan is to take three days to drive the 1000-1100 miles (depending on what we have to do to dodge the big Sierra Nevada fires) to Glenwood Springs. We’ll spend 10 days riding a loop to the south and east of Glenwood Springs. We'll go over six passes, three of them over 10,000 feet.

Then we’ll drive the 1000 miles or so to Bigfork, Montana, to spend a couple of days with Genny’s family. Finally, we’ll drive the 1100 miles back to Napa, dodging fires and smoke along the way. It’s basically a big triangle with 1000 miles on each side. In some ways, this is also a driving tour of the western fire country. The west is in a severe drought. Climate change is real.