World United States Colorado Estes Park

John and Janna 2008 West Trip

Estes Park, Colorado May 8, 2008

Miles today: I forgot to check before we turned Arvy off

Time today: 5 hours and 5 minutes

I finally saw a tumbleweed! Granted it was very small, but it was tumbling across the interstate 70.

Triple bottom trucks are allowed on the interstates in Colorado...a cab pulling THREE trailers behind them. It is almost like seeing a small train on the road.

We rain into rain as we drove into Denver, but it wasn't hard rain. What was hard was the traffic. I never thought I would see traffic worse than Atlanta, but Denver can probably beat Atlanta. We drove in on I70, turned north onto I25 then onto US 36 and drove through Boulder. The University of Colorado is on both sides of US36 going into town from the south. The school has beautiful buildings.

We had caught glimpses of the mountains before we got into Denver, but in Boulder we were driving right at the foot of the mountains. There are no foothills, just high plains right up to the mountains.

Just north of Boulder, as we left the city behind, we saw a large herd of mule deer calmly grazing at the side of the highway. There were at least 25 animals.

We rose in elevation from the 5280 feet in Denver (exactly a mile) up to 7522 feet in Estes Park. The town is neat. There is a big lake and the city is nestled in a valley surrounded by huge mountains, some of which are covered in snow.

We checked into the KOA and set off to find a grocery store and take a look around. We look forward to exploring the town Friday and plan to go into Rocky Mountain National Park on Sunday when the weather is expected to be sunny and warmer.