The Girls rule!

With a new 'hardcore' TKC80 rear tyre we head off into Colorado. It's like arriving in heaven when we finally make it to the coolness of the mountains - refreshing to be back amongst snow capped peaks and alpine forests. I think I've turned into a mountain girl.
Leadville is our first destination in Colorado and we are exuberantly greeted at the hostel by another guest. He's firing questions about the bikes and our journey before we've even dismounted and removed our earplugs. We get introduced to the extremely generous 'Wild Bill' who manages to find a room for us despite being almost full up and who also serves up a delicious roast dinner. Over the course of the evening and the following morning we're entertained with stories from 'Wild Bill' both about the history of Leadville (A very successful mining town with a Titanic connection) and his interest in blues music from his home state of Mississippi. And we are in awe of the fellow guests, some of whose own adventures are taking them along the Continental Divide trail, a rather long walk from Mexico to Canada. Leadville is at the crossroads of three major trails through the states and therefore walkers quite often turn up at the hostel. As adventure bikers, we seemed to be few and far between in this neck of the woods and become the centre of attention for a few hours. It would have to be one of the most friendly hostels we've stayed in. So if you do end up in Leadville, or Colorado even, take the time to stay - http://www.leadvillehostel.com/.

A detour via Vail and Aspen ski resorts, through gorgeous alpine vallies brought us to Boulder. Erin and Chris Ratay, legen advriders - check out http://www.ultimatejourney.com/ for the story of their 4 and half year jaunt around the globe on bikes - kindly put us up in their well equipped and beautiful home. They have a basement kitted out for the purpose of guests which includes books on their own travels as well as others, a massive map of the world and a decent map of the USA, just so we could see how much further we still had to go, one day we'll be finished. In the garage the bikes got the same treatment, the car was kicked out and our two overweight dirty bikes were parked up next to Chris and Erin's own stock of BMWs, a KTM and a Kawasaki. We had tools galore at our disposal and even learnt how to pick up our overladen bikes by ourselves - better late than never. So the KLR finally got a new tool box, one that is useful and half the weight of the other two that Mike removed in in Moab.

Girls who ride!

And some guys who think they can :0)

What else to do in Boulder, we went out and got drunk a couple of nights, God, we're so out of practise, and we got to meet other advmotor riders. And, if you can believe it, for once the girls outnumbered the boys. Anyone listening to Erin, Spice, Kasey and I compare notes and tell stories of our own motorcycling adventures, would have thought they were in a parallel universe, where the girls rode and the boys weren't to be seen. The boys were actually at the bar topping up their own testosterone levels. After such wonderful company, it was hard to leave but after waking up each morning and seeing the map of the USA on the wall, we knew we had to get on.