Steve's Favorite Park

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Geo: 39.8917, -105.762

We headed out this morning at 7:30 AM and 57 degrees with Colorado in our sights. We drove for three hours through southern Wyoming, and as we got further south, the topography got much more interesting than it was yesterday. As we have seen in the southwest, out of deserts rise great mesas, and we saw some today. They did not have the bright and variegated colors of the ones in the southwest…these were yellowish tan…but they look majestic nonetheless with the horizontal ridges at the top and sand falling away at the bottom.

We left Wyoming and crossed the border into Colorado at 10:23 and it always feels good to be in this state…it is incredibly beautiful. Colorado gave to me a love for mountains and perhaps one day I will see the supreme mountain of them all, in Nepal, the great Mt. Everest. But that is for another day. Today we are in Colorado and headed for Steve's favorite national park.

By 11:15 we were driving through Roosevelt National Forest on our way into the east side of park. It was a beautiful drive along the Fall River that winds its way through a deep canyon with great stone walls and trees growing out of rocks. I will never understand how that happens, but it looks cool. We saw many fisherman along the way trying their luck in this river that was running very shallow thanks to a dam upriver. And wherever someone could build a cabin on a cliff, someone did. What wonderful views they must have.

We drove Rt. 34 all the way across the park and took a lot of photos. The park was jammed packed with cars and RV's driving the winding roads with all of it's switchbacks, which always make me nervous, especially when we are on the outside lane. With no guardrails in most places, it is a loooong way down. We smelled overheated brakes on several vehicles and hoped that they were smart enough to stop and let them cool. There was even a traffic jam at the top, caused by a full parking lot with people trying to find an empty parking space that didn't exist.

After leaving the park, we headed south to Winter Park to spend a couple of days in a condo so generously offered to us by our friends Bob and Gloria. Thanks, guys. This place is awesome. Tomorrow we plan to venture down to Breckenridge and Vale, which are fun places to visit, even in the summer.

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Photos

Colorado Mountains