Vacation Journal

We spent most of the day driving.  After breakfast, we headed to Mount Evans.  We encountered a three lane backup on I-70 due to an accident.  One of those signs over the highway with messages in lights told us about the accident.  After one mile of creeping slowly along, we took an exit, circled back, and took a back road through the mountains to get to Mount Evans.  We were still a couple miles from the accident when we exited.  We found ourselves on a very scenic drive past Red Rocks Amphitheater and a very neat little town (Evergreen) in a small valley.

We finally got to the top of Mount Evans.  The road goes to 14,130 feet, which makes it 20 feet higher than the road on Pike’s Peak.  However, the dirt road on Pike’s Peak does get to the actual top of Pike’s Peak.  The paved Mount Evans Road stops about 150 feet shy of the actual top of Mount Evans.  The drive up Evans was scenic.  We did see all three of the main kinds of mammals that live up there – Mountain Goats, Bighorn Sheep, and Marmots.  It took us over three hours to get to Evans and back down to the Interstate.  I was impressed by the number of bicyclists going to the top.  This might be because the road up Evans is sloped more gently than the road up Pike’s Peak.  The reason it took us so long to make the drive up and back is because the road is much longer than the road up the Peak. 

We drove on to the Dillon/Silverthorne area and bought something to eat at a McDonald’s drive thru.  Our plans for the day called for us to get halfway across Colorado to Grand Junction before the quilt shop there closed.  We ate in the car and got to the quilt shop at 4:30.  We had driven 234 miles from Wheat Ridge to Grand Junction, not counting the trip up the mountain.

It was 85 miles from Grand Junction to our campground.  We stopped in Delta to eat at The Eatery again.  The food was still good.  Too bad it’s so far away from our RV. 

I-70 between Denver and Grand Junction is a fascinating drive.  You see all kinds of scenery.  You go over two major high points – Vail Pass and Eisenhower Tunnel.  You go up and down a lot on the east end.  You never go more than a mile without a curve for 200 miles of the road.  Sometimes the curves are so tight that the speed limit on the Interstate is only 50 miles per hour.  In Glenwood Springs Canyon, just east of Glenwood Springs, the canyon is so narrow that the east-bound lanes are at the bottom and the west-bound lanes are often up on the canyon walls on a bridge.  Sometimes part of the west-bound lanes are suspended above the east-bound lanes.  We have driven this road many times and consider it one of the most scenic there is.  There is also a bicycle path through the whole canyon with rest stops every 7 or 8 miles.  We have ridden bikes through part of the canyon.  The Interstate is on the north side of the canyon.  Railroad tracks are on the south side.  Quite a few trains go through here.  A lot of rafters go through the canyon in warm weather.  It’s well worth a visit.