May 20th - No Name

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Lenoir to Raleigh 174 miles

Raleigh to Atl 355 miles (via air)

Atl to Denver 1196 miles (via air)

Denver on 185 miles

Susan and Pam woke up and got on the road early to head to Raleigh. Claire woke up much later and visited with Nicky. The sisters all met at McDonalds and Susan followed Claire into SAS to leave her car and we headed to the airport. We checked-in, made our flights and headed to Denver. The plane didn’t have a movie, sigh, so we read and napped. Denver was cooler and there was rain in the distance. We went to get our van for the trip. The check-in process showed that stuff was included (extra drivers and insurance) but their computers kept trying to charge us extra. Really??? The agent fixed everything and we found our van after Claire tried to twist her bad ankle on the curb. Seriously, did Claire really try to twist her ankle again - and in the airport and not on one of the hikes?

Well, this van is not quite as nice as our previous ones, no GPS, no electronic door locks, no seat controls, no trip odometer… but the back seat is different and allows the back seat passenger to sit in the middle and get a good view. All in all it is a good van. Her name is Cassidy. Given that we all have alignments at the moment, Susan said we were like “Hop Along Cassidy”, so Cassidy it is.

We got on the road and hit the rain. There was also a major delay on the route (45 minutes and it kept getting longer) not only that, we were all getting hungry. So we started looking for places to eat. Claire found a restaurant in Golden that looked wonderful, and we headed there. Golden was a very nice small town and a great place to visit. As you drive into town you go under a big “GOLDEN” sign. This stop was a great decision as the food was fantastic plus the rain somewhat died down. The road into Glenwood is I70 and is the Canyon Scenic Drive and it was beautiful. We found out that the big backup was a major accident and the massive delays were because of this accident; yet, by the time we got there, they had opened up the highway and the traffic was great.

As we were driving, Claire saw a sign and thought it said “Wildfire Crossing”. Susan and Pam laughed and say “Nope, wildlife crossing”. We saw many deer eating right beside the road during our drive. It was a little nerve racking because they blended in with the scenery and you really didn’t see them till you got right up on them.

We did see snow on the mountains and drove a while above the snow line. There were many tunnels and one of them was really long. There were also many steep downhill sections. Unfortunately, the prettiest part of the drive was as the end and it was too dark to really see the canyon.

We did pass by the “No Name” exit. Ok, “no name” for what?

We made it to Glenwood Springs and checked into our hotel, the Residence Inn and we used hotel points. We look forward to tomorrow.

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Photos

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Golden

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the drive

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Snow

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Snow and Mountains

Comments

[Barbara]

Happy Traveling
So glad the trip is going well and you found good food in Golden. The part of Colorado you’re traveling through is gorgeous.