Saturday - November 15, 2008

As Ellie says, with this lifestyle plans are made in jello and easily changed, so, with that in mind, we decided to head straight west to Utah. After checking weather forecasts and campground facilities we figured it would be a good trip across to Utah and Arches National Park through Denver.

Our first thought on leaving this morning was to make it a fairly short day and spend the night in Ogallala, NE (ever read the book or watched the TV series Lonesome Dove?), but when checking my Interstate Exits book realized there was nothing in Ogallala so decided to head to Hudson, CO which is about 30 miles east of Denver. This would then be an easy shot into and through Denver tomorrow and a big city is usually a lot nicer to go through on a Sunday than a Monday, so here we are in Hudson.

The weather today was gorgeous, clear blue sky all day with a high temperature of about 52F (11C). The traffic was very light so all in all it was a good day.

The terrain was mostly flat through Nebraska and a bit more rolling in Colorado but mainly all farming country. We saw a lot of hunters out today and at one point there were a lot of them along a lake, we wondered if they were duck hunting, but, if so, the ducks were on the next lake. We wondered if there was a law against shooting a sitting duck, therefore, they were waiting at the next lake for them to fly over – lol! Once in Colorado we passed quite a few feed lots, could smell them before we could see them! There was also one long ridge off in the distance to the north and it had windmills all along the top. There weren’t any photo opportunities today, hence no photos.

For most of the day we could see trains off to the north and they looked like the usual long trains we have previously seen in the west, but we were never close to any of them. Lo and behold though, as we arrived at Hudson there were the train tracks right beside the interstate, and oh yes, right beside the RV park. Did I mention that this park was once a KOA, therefore, it has all the KOA amenities - interstate and train tracks!!! So far in about 3 hours there have only been two trains by, sure hope the train traffic doesn't pick up overnight!

And so ends another great gift of a day, please come back again to see what our trip through Denver and across the mountains was like. Hopefully we will get some nice pictures on the drive tomorrow!