Thanks everyone, great advice.
We have been to Grand Junction, Black Canyon (hiked down to the river) and Moab so no need to head there now.
We seem to like the suggestions from Busskipper the best. I think the route along 70 staying at Leadville and touring around that area seams to be most to our liking. We love to hike and bicycle ride and I think we can spend endless amounts of time hiking. We also love to tour the small mountain towns. I think we will then head up to Dinosaur NM then off to SLC.
I think with our 600 hp engine we should have no problem crossing the pass along 70 heading out of Denver. We recently drove from Grand Junction through Ouray then south on the Million Dollar hwy to Durango. What a blast but want to see some new areas of CO now.
With this plan we will omit Fort Collins from our itinerary.