This morning we awoke to bright sunshine and clear blue skies – gotta love it!! It was 10C (50F) when we pulled out of the park this morning just before 9:30 so we knew it was going to be a great day. Not only was it a great day weather wise but a WOW day for scenery.
Yesterday we could see the Rockies off in the distance but there was quite a haze so they weren’t very clear, this morning they were clear and majestic looking as we headed into Denver – wow!
The Rockies
The drive through Denver was good with very little traffic, just the way we like it! Once clear of Denver we really got into the mountains and what an absolutely gorgeous drive, with stunning scenery. Unfortunately, there are no scenic overlooks or places to pull off and enjoy the scenery so most of my pictures are taken through the truck window – not the best way to take pictures!
Nice Houses West of Denver
We passed quite a number of ski hills with lots of people skiing and went through a number of tunnels with the longest being at least 2 km (unfortunately we didn’t check the mileage but it was a long one). The highest point we reached was an elevation of 11,902’ and the temperature there was about 3C (36F) – too cold!!! At times there was water on the road from melting snow and we saw a lot reservoirs with a skim of ice on the top, but no snow on the roads. Coming out of Denver there are a number of chain lanes – lanes where you can pull over and put chains on your tires – we sure were glad that today was a good day and we didn’t need to worry about that (especially seeing that we don’t have chains - lol!!!).
The drive through the Rockies was one huge tourist area with lots of gorgeous ski chalets, motels, hotels, restaurants, white water rafting companies, ski hills etc. It is still early in the season so it didn’t appear to be too busy but I imagine winter time would be a real zoo. Interestingly, Vail is at a lower elevation and there was no snow there at all so it was fairly quiet going through there.
Some of the Scenery
On the west side we picked up the Colorado River and it ran beside the interstate for a long ways, surprisingly it isn’t very wide but we did see lots of little rapids.
We are stopped tonight at Grand Junction, which is home to many vineyards and wineries, and to end the day there was a beautiful sunset – what an absolutely wonderful day we have had.
And so ends a great gift of a day, please do come back tomorrow to see what kind of a day we had.
1 comment:
Nice pics of the mountains!!
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