Four cars with SAMC members left Tucson on Tuesday, June 9th to attend the 20th Annual Rocky Mountain Roundup in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.  Our route this year takes us to Florence Arizona, to Claypool and north past Roosevelt Reservoir, on through Payson, and to the Red Onion Restaurant near Heber for lunch.  From Heber we continued on to Holbrook and I-40 east to Gallup, New Mexico where we turned north through Shiprock and on to Cortez, Colorado for the night.  

The weather was clear and dry.  I took us about 9 hours from Tucson to Cortez, with an hour for lunch and a gas stop in Payson, and Gallup.

We met Bernie and Grace Burl at the Red Onion for lunch and they joined us for the trip to Cortez.  This gives us four SAMC families on the trip and 6 cars.

Tomorrow we head north through the Colorado Rockies.

Day 2 Update June 11, 2008:
Today we left Cortez Colorado with our six car caravan and headed north through Delores, Colorado along the Delores River and through some beautiful country.   We continued close to Telluride and on to Ridgway, then north on US 550 to Montrose.  At Montrose we turned east on US 50 to Gunnison for lunch at the largest Subway I have ever seen.  We continued east to US 285 and turned north to Leadville, then NE on CO 91 to I-70 to Silverthorne and north again on CO 9 to US 40 and on into Steamboat Springs.  We saw more 14,000 foot plus peaks covered with snow than we could count.  All the steams/rivers are overflowing.  Many of the reservoirs are low because they are letting water out; anticipating warmer weather and more run off.

The weather was clear and dry, except for some light snow showers as we passed through Leadville.  It took us about 10 hours from Cortez to Steamboat, about an hour longer than it should have due to an overturned 18 wheeler in a narrow canyon east of Gunnison.  We think it took about 3-4 hours to clear the road, but we only waited about an hour.

We all had pizza and beer in our room once we got settled in.  We were all tired after our two days on the road.

Tomorrow is a slow day with registration starting at 11 AM and the scenic mountain tour at 1 PM.

Day 3 Update June 12, 2008:
This is a rest day, at least in the morning.  We were able to register and receive our packets at 11 AM.  Everyone receives a prize of some kind.  I won a Moroso degree wheel, so I’ll either have to sell it to Will, or build an engine.  The mountain tour started at 1 PM and went for about 60 miles up the Yampa River basin.  The Yampa was running full to overflowing all the way. echnical Inspection for those participating in the auto cross was from 4 to 8 PM, but Steve Felde and the Mahoney’s got that out of the way early.   We all went to an Italian Restaurant and had a great meal, then took a walk over the Yampa River, then called the hotel for bus to come get us. We had a few beers in our room then hit the hay, anticipating a big day at the auto cross.