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Okay, during my stay yes there was a Naughty School Girl themed motorcycle ride in Durango.  Did I need to shamelessly put it the title with the event poster to draw you in, I guess not.  However if I just titled this Durango, Colorado, I’m guessing that it wouldn’t have quite the same amount of interest.

I spent several days between Durango and Cortez, CO.  They are about 50 miles apart.  Cortez is a fine town with a four lane road running through its heart and most of the businesses seem to all be on that road.  After a few days I noticed that the busiest businesses in Cortez seemed to be a Thai restaurant and this store that sold pot across the street. Coincidence or perhaps the Thai restaurant owner is a visionary.  There is a lot to see in the area like the Canyon of the Ancients with ancient Indian ruins along with other historical sites and museums and for those of you that are less high brow you can even find cows having an afternoon pool party. 

 I ended up staying in Cortez because of some issues I had with rugged camping spots and trailering my bike, plus I found this great office space in Cortez and set up shop here. 

Durango on the other hand has a Main Street with a lot of tourist appeal.  When I first rolled into town and walked around it had that touristy quality to much of the Main Street stores, but it also felt like a college town and it is.  I found out that Fort Lewis College sits up on a hill over looking the town of Durango.  Took a drive around the campus and it’s small but it looks like a great place to go to school. 

The city of Durango has a lot going on.  This is a great place to spend a few days and stroll around, dine and shop.  Plus they have lots of outdoorsy things to do in the area and a train ride you can take to see the area.  I did the usual window shopping type activity, but was really taken in by a great store that sold vintage things.  I actually went back to this store a second time, which is not typical for me.  I talked to the owner for a about a half hour the first time and her story about how her and her husband started this shop was really interesting.  Seems they decided a little later in life to leave the careers they had, open this vintage store and succeeded.  Yet, another great example of people that decided to live the life of their choosing.  As far as the surrounding area and scenery, well it’s Colorado, and it’s beautiful. 

Okay so the Naughty School Girl Bike Rally.  What drew my attention to it was, well, that it’s a naughty school girl motorcycle rally and it just seemed like something that I should investigate.  I just had to stay around for another day or two, but for the sake of science and humanity and anyone reading this, I was willing to make the sacrifice.  Oh, you could also come as a nun or a priest if you wanted to dress for this event.  I left my priest garments back in NJ so I had nothing to wear.  Luckily you can come looking like a greasy, dirty, unshaven biker too, which most folks did, including me. 

So this ride is what’s called a Poker Run.  The object is to stop at five different locations and at each one you draw a playing card from a deck and it gets marked on the form that you take with you during the day.  Then when you get to the last stop you have a completed poker hand and the people with the best hands win prizes.  There are also raffles, some hat and shirt sales and it’s all for a good cause with the proceeds going to support the armed forces veterans. 

I got to the starting point for this ride at 9:30AM which was at apparently a holy place called Cole’s Chop Shop.  I’m guessing it’s a holy place since it seems to be the Pope’s summer residence.  There were many burley tattooed bikers as expected, one Cardinal, a few gals that got in the spirit of the thing and dressed as naughty school girls and of course the Pope.  More riders and more spirited gals showed up during the day so the turn out was pretty good.  My only issue with this ride and being from out of town is that when I saw the schedule there was more congregating then riding and I wanted to see the area.  The first three stops, starting at around 10:00AM were all taverns and only a few miles apart.  The last two stops were saloons and a further ride and each stop was scheduled for about an hour.  So just to clarify, both taverns and saloons serve food and alcoholic beverages, just like a pub, BUT according to Google a saloon is basically a tavern that often doubled as a brothel in the American West.   Okay now we all learned something new.  Anyway, that wasn’t enough riding for me and also it was a lot of time hanging out trying to buddy up to folks I don’t know.  So I found out where the last stop was going to be and spent about 5 hours riding around beautiful Colorado. 

At 3:00PM I arrived at the last stop where there was a pig roast for the bikers.  The bar was called the Rusty Shovel Saloon and about 18 miles off the main road and through some nice back country.  They were playing some great loud classic rock music.  Parking lot… full of bikes, bar… full of bikers and their ladies, and of course one Pope, one Cardinal (which looked suspiciously like a Rabbi) and maybe 15 or so lovely naughty school girls.  It was a great vibe and a lot of fun.  Food was good and the beer was icy cold.  By around 5:00PM I was pretty beat from the riding I did and still had about another 80 miles to go to get to Cortez where I was staying.  So I didn’t stay to see who was crowned Ms. Naughty School Girl of 2018, but to me if you come dressed like that and participate you’re a winner no matter what.  If you want to see pictures of the event you can go to facebook at naughty schoolgirl run-Durango, CO@popeshoultzze. 

I did not get an audience with the Pope, but I did get a blessing from the Cardinal (or Rabbi) out in the parking lot.  I’m not sure what he was doing out there, but hopefully not trying to siphon gas from one of those nice Harley’s in the lot. 

Peace and blessings to all… 

Campers:  There are a lot of dispersed camping spots in the area.  My problem was that the several I checked were either much too rugged for me to attempt to go in towing the motorcycle, or there were a lot of dead ends and with the bike trailer that would be a problem if I got caught in those areas.  If I didn’t have that, I would have been in some nice camping areas because the truck would have easily made it.  Also one of the spots I tried had the wrong coordinates and I got lost in a very rural development. 

Bikers:  Great area to ride and I highly suggest if you’re in the area to take Rt 149 to Taluride .  The ride will be a life long memory as it has a lot of WOW factor.