Post # 80: Some statistics

Audible sigh.

Well, people, this is it.  Number 80!  I like that I can end on a round number of posts.  To sum up, here are some more numbers, big and small, from our trip:

• 2,184 hours (87 days) spent in each other's company (yes, really)
• 228 hours of driving
• 352,000 steps of hiking (each)
• 10,000 miles traveled.  We drove 9,802 miles and as my father pointed out, when you add in all the hiking we did that easily takes us up to 10,000.   
• 44 hiking/kayaking adventures
• 38 different camping places (including Walmart parking lots)
• 20+ quarts of sprouts sprouted
• 1.43 kilowatt hours collected by our solar panels
• 33 pounds lost: Nils 18, Lisa 15 (I gained a few back but am determined to lose about 15 more)
• 19 states passed through

We visited the following State/National Parks/Monuments/Recreation Areas in this order (prepare yourselves, it's a long list):

1. Mt. Gilead State Park (OH)
2. Badlands National Park (SD)
3. Custer State Park--Sylvan Lake (SD)
4. Angostura State Recreation Area (SD)
5. Mt. Rushmore National Memorial (SD)
6. Crazy Horse Memorial (SD)
7. Big Horn National Forest (WY)
8. Buffalo Bill Reservoir State Park (WY)
9. Big Horn Canyon National Recreation Area (WY/MT)
10. Yellowstone National Park (WY)
11. Grand Teton National Park (WY)
12. Bridger-Teton National Forest (WY)
13. Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area (UT/WY)
14. Capitol Reef National Park (UT)
15. Escalante-Grand Staircase National Monument (UT)
16. Bryce Canyon National Park (UT)
17. Zion National Park (UT)
18. Grand Canyon National Park (AZ)
19. Red Rock District, Coconino National Forest (AZ)
20. Petrified Forest National Park (AZ)
21. Painted Desert National Park (AZ)
22. Canyon de Chelly National Monument (AZ)
23. Four Corners Monument (AZ)
24. Mesa Verde National Park (AZ)
25. BLM Canyon Rim Recreation Area (UT)
26. Arches National Park (UT)
27. Canyonland National Park (UT)
28. Colorado Monument National Park (CO)
29. Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park (CO)
30. Rifle Gap State Park (CO)
31. Rocky Mountain National Park (CO)
32. Cody Park, City of North Platte (NE)

Wow!  What a gift to have been able to spend pretty much as much time as we wanted to in each of these places.  We definitely want to revisit Utah---the national parks there, collectively, were our favorites.   I want to spend more time in Sedona, checking out the Vortexes.  And we never got to explore New Mexico....we'll go back West again someday.  

For those of you who only look at the pictures (!) Sally C suggested that I post some of the inside of the RV (since not all of you have had a tour in person), so here they are:

The view as you walk in the front door....Nils's comfy chair (with ottoman) and the loveseat

Closeup of the loveseat....I made the star quilt and the celtic knot pillows.

Here is my little kitchen:

As you can see, it's just to the right as you come inside the front door.  That little flip-up counter down right in the picture was the extent of my cutting/work space.  I like a challenge!

And here's our "dining area" with tv/entertainment center.  Bedroom is in the wayback (it looks better with linens on, but they were in the washing machine at the time).  Bathroom door is on the right)

So--now you've had a tour of our little house on wheels.  We're already dreaming about a not-bigger- but-better next RV.

I've really enjoyed blogging---thanks for checking in.   Keep in touch! 

XOXOXO Lisa and Nils
(lahbel@deerfield.edu)

Home again.....and a request (see below)

Sunday, October 21

Well, I have been the queen of procrastination, haven't I?   Guess I didn't really want this trip to end, and making the last posts just feels a little too final.  Even now, it's hard to let go and say "yes, I'm really done".  It's strange how quickly we've gotten used to being very insulated from the outside world....temps that were too cold for comfortable RV life are barely noticeable now that we're home.  And we're not around those amazing mountains and canyons for daily hikes anymore.    On the plus side, we LOVE sleeping again in our wonderful bed.  And it's great to see our children and our friends again.

So, here are some pictures from our neighborhood.  Fall colors this year are beautiful but not spectacular...summer was too hot and dry, I guess.  There's a lot of yellow, orange, rust and brown, almost no bright red.

In our front yard

Tons of pumpkins

Aren't the giant pumpkins amazing?!  The Lowe family has put on a similar display in their front yard every Fall for the last 5 or 6 years.  If the biggest one was hollowed out, I think that I could fit inside it.

There will be one more post....but before I say goodby for good, I have a request.  Some of you I know already (because you've emailed me and mentioned the blog), but many of you I've never even met.  Would you please send me an email and introduce yourselves?  And now that you've seen the pictures and read the descriptions, where would YOU like to visit someday?  My email is lahbel@deerfield.edu.  I've love to hear from you.

Our Last Day on the Road--Part II

Still Saturday, 10/13


I realized as we were leaving Rochester that we had no pictures of us driving in the truck.  So here's Captain Nils at the wheel:

World's best driver

And here I am, on the computer.  Nils took this one while he was driving, for goodness' sake (which is probably against some law or other).

Lisa answering email in the car

Nils threw caution to the wind and drove almost 70mph most of the time---we just wanted to be done with all this driving.  The scenery was lovely---colorful foliage and I saw about 4 V-formations of geese in the sky (right up there with twisty trees as one of my favorite things).   We had a total of 5 1/2 hours to drive and we had daylight for a little over half of it.  Had to stop twice for gas, which got more and more expensive as we headed east, it seemed.

coming into the front door

By a little after 9pm we pulled into Wells Street....it was pitch dark out, so we couldn't really see the beauties of Deerfield....we did, however, soon appreciate the beautiful cleanliness of our house.  Erika and Lucy had driven down from VT last weekend and dusted and cleaned everything for us.  What a treat!  Unloading the RV and putting everything away was a big job already, to not have to clean months worth of dust bunnies was fantastic.  Muchas Gracias, Tusend Tack, Vielen Dank, Merci Beaucoup.   We brought in the bare essentials (toiletries, bed pillows and alcohol), turned up the heat everywhere and bemusedly asked each other, "where's the light switch?  Which drawer does this spoon go into?  How do I turn on the garbage disposal?"  It felt very strange.  It took a little while to get the hang of everything after so long away.    Ah! The bliss of long hot showers!  Getting into our incredibly comfortable king-sized bed!  Feeling truly warm enough for the first time in about 10 days!  Lovely.

Not to worry, I'm not quite done yet with the blog....

Our last day on the road--Part I

Saturday, 10/13

Well, our wishes regarding the temperatures last night were NOT to be granted.  The sky was utterly clear all night and the day dawned sunny and crisp and utterly frigid....as cold as we've ever experienced while RV-ing.  Not one cloud to help insulate us from the low temperatures.   Just so you know, it was never that cold inSIDE the RV.  It stayed 60 or above, thanks to our trusty little space heater.  But--it was really, REALLY cold outside.   Poor Nils didn't sleep at all well, he kept getting up to run more warm water from the various faucets to forestall possible freezing.     It was definitely time to be on our way home before we burst some pipes or tanks or whatever.

Nils scratched the temp into the frost on the windshield--you can see the frost on the grass, too.

28 degrees, can you believe it?!  We couldn't.  It was too cold for me to think about showering (even though we DID have hot water, once we unscrewed the frozen water filter off of the end of the outside hose!)--just dressed (warmly) and got the RV ready to pull in the slide-out and hitch it up for the last time.  Especially because of parents weekend, we knew that we wouldn't be able to find a big enough parking space for it on campus, but fortunately there was a peripheral parking lot with shuttle bus service to within short walking distance of the SigEp (short for Sigma Phi Epsilon, FYI) house.  We went with Bjorn to a coffee shop around 10am and by noon we were at the house again, getting ready for the Open House/BBQ.

Without us I don't think there would have been a BBQ, at least not anywhere close to on time!

Grillmeister Nils

Action shot!  Joined by Matt Skurnick's dad, who pitched right in and did a ton of work too

We helped to set up tables, put the food out in an artful way (something I love to do), arrange chairs and then run around like crazies re-filling bowls of chips and macaroni salad, finishing cooking the hotdogs on the stove, and the like.

See the big curved sectionals facing the fireplace/tv?

Bjorn was his usual eloquent self, addressing the mix of parents, brothers and SigEp alums (including the founding president of the chapter who graduated almost 30 years ago).  He was totally verklemmt by the end and had a few of us in tears as well, talking about how much this extended family meant to him.    It was very sweet.

President Bjorn addressing the crowd of alumns, parents and current SigEp brothers

Then he handed things over to Nils who made the pitch for some parental donations to the moving-into-the-SigEp-house fund.

Nils makes the pitch to parents asking them to contribute toward moving-related expenses

They've raised $1200 so far!  Which means they can buy some large plastic bowls, serving platters, a bigger grill and a heavy-duty metal spatula, to name just a few things I wish we'd had available on Saturday.

At around 2:30pm we said our good-bys and hurried to the shuttle stop to wait for our ride back to the RV.  Soon we would be on the final leg of our trip back home......

Smeliora! Rochester, day 2

Friday, 10/12

We're here for Homecoming/Parent's weekend at U of Rochester, which they call Meliora Weekend...."Meliora" in Latin means "ever better", and it's the motto of the school.  Nils coined the variation "Smeliora" just to be funny (after all, he IS the mature one in the family), and apparently is the only person who's ever thought of this (Bjorn's friends are all simultaneously delighted and bummed that they didn't think of it already themselves).

On the program for today was lunch with Bjorn's good friend Matt Skurnick along with his parents and two adorable grandmothers, all from NYC.  It was great to finally meet them!  Bjorn unfortunately had a TEST at 2pm, followed by a homework assignment deadline of 5pm for one of his engineering classes.  Needless to say, we didn't see him all afternoon.   We bought some party supplies (for tomorrow) at Wegman's (fantastic supermarket chain in Rochester) and worked on warming ourselves up--found a sunny parking spot for the truck and took a little nap.

We returned to the SigEp house around 5 and met more of Bjorn's brothers in the process.  I really do feel a) like a VIP and b) as though I've gained many sons in the last 24 hours.  All I have to do when I meet any young man in the SigEp house, is to say, "I'm Bjorn's mom" and I get an enormous smile, a long hug and immediate offers of assistance.  It's pretty sweet.

Arturo and Bjorn, being silly

When Bjorn finished his school work we headed over to Arturo's house for a little SigEp family party.   We met Arturo's mom and step dad--Mary and Bob--for the first time and it was as if we've known them forever.   The other invitees had dinner reservations to go to--but we already had a big lunch, so we just stayed, ate the delicious appetizers that Mary and Bob set out and had a great time.  The conversation waxed quite philosophical and hysterically funny as well, of course--fueled by most excellent chocolate chip cookies baked by Arturo's sister Penelope.  Nils orchestrated some group "action" shots:

Bjorn, Arturo, Nils, Mary and Bob....happy!

...sad

...and oh so surprised.

And now---on our way to the campground (with Lisa as designated driver) for one last night in the RV.  It's not supposed to go below 32 degrees.  We shall see.....

In Rochester

Thursday, 10/11

It's a sunny, crisp morning...we left Canton at around 8:30am.  Odometer check: 91,771 miles, which means that we've traveled 9,036 miles so far on this trip.  Nils was amazed.  A lot of those miles were, fortunately, without the trailer hitched up!!  We were at our campsite by 2pm (in LeRoy, NY, about 20 mins drive from campus) and met up with Bjorn in his "new" fraternity house by 3pm.  The house is big and in a gorgeous location (within view of the Genesee River, very centrally located on the campus).  They have two gigantic semi-circular sectional couches (that look an awful lot like leather) which look normal-sized in their very big living room.  They also have a pool table, an industrial kitchen (quite understocked in the utensil and plate depts!) and a great big porch off of the living room. Bjorn even cleaned up his bedroom before we got there.   We picked up Lindsay (Bjorn's lovely girlfriend) a little later and then went out for early dinner at the Han Noodle Bar, one of our favorite places to eat in Rochester.  Took along Sake and wine and it was a real party.

At the Han Noodle bar with Bjorn and Lindsay

Then, off to our cold campsite....it's supposed to not quite freeze, and we're very happy about that.

enjoying Canton

Tues/Weds, 10/9-10


On Tuesday, we did errands (like get another Lube-oil-filter on the truck), visited my old library in North Canton (I used to walk to that library to get my allotted two books, and then would have read one of them already by the time I got home) to use the internet there.  At 5pm  we met Erik and Jan (Nils's brother and sister-in-law) for dinner at a really nice new Asian bistro in downtown Canton.  It was lovely to see them and have a chance to visit.

On Wednesday, Nils and I HAD to get some exercise....we checked out the trail by Martindale Park and had a great hike there.  No mountains, but a lot of beautiful trees and a vineyard.  We came home for delicious Inga-made food and then the three of us went out for a walk together.   Inga showed us the Hoover Park trail which immediately went into the woods and was very beautiful.

Tomorrow we leave for Rochester.....

Inga and Lisa on the trail...

....and crossing a bridge

Camping out in Inga's driveway--again

Monday, 10/8


We arrived in Canton and it was deja vu all over again (in July, on our way west, we camped out in her driveway as well)....just 40+ degrees colder.  Brrrrrr!    Nils's mom was very glad to be able to see with her own eyes that we were safe and sound after all of our harrowing adventures in steep canyons, and greeted us with wonderful food.   That evening we went over to Doug and Sally's house for a visit.   Doug, Sally and  Nils all went to the Univ of Cincinnati together and have kept in touch since then.   Great to see them and catch up.  (They'd been following the blog, so they were also glad to see us safe and sound!)

Nils, Lisa, Sally and Doug

The long schlep to Michigan

Saturday and Sunday, 10/6-7

We left Moline really, really, REALLY early on Saturday morning.  Like 3am Central Time.  That's when Nils woke up and he knew that we had a lot of driving to do, so why not get to it?   We were ready to leave within minutes and on our way this frosty, misty morning.  Can I just say that it is incredibly cold?!?!?

I was able to doze in the car for an hour or so, and we stopped mid morning for a more deliberate nap for both of us.  Caffeine helped also.  We arrived at the Detroit-Greenfield RV park after 8 hours of driving.  Nice park, full of families there for Hallow'een weekend celebrations.  They decorated their RVs and the kids dressed up in costume and at 5pm there was Trick-or-Treating.  We were fast asleep at that point, but no one disturbed us because our outside light was not on.

Next morning we woke at a more normal hour (7:30 EST) and left around 8 for Ann Arbor (25 mins away).  We stopped at a McDonald's for 20 mins or so to download some pictures and check email...by 9 on the dot we were knocking on Kai's door.   Isabel had a group tennis lesson at noon, so we went along to watch, of course.

Isabel (sans upper middle teeth) and her crazy Uncle Nils

Isabel with Aunt Lisa

Isabel and a partner with tennis ball sandwiched betw their rackets...the object was to go as fast as possible without losing the ball along the way

After tennis we went out to eat a delicious vegetarian lunch, then came back to the house to hang out.  While Kai and I walked Jackie the dog, Nils performed math magic with Isabel who now all of a sudden can tell you what 2+7 is.  Yay!

Lisa, Isabel, Kai and Nils

In Moline for a birthday celebration

Friday, 10/5

Janice hadn't told me ahead of time, but today is Richard's 60th birthday.  So I offered to cook him a special dinner, something I always enjoy doing.  It was a pleasure to cook in a REAL kitchen for a change, with a workspace that's bigger than 1 1/2 square feet.   On the menu:  Shrimp in a pink sauce (a Madhur Jaffrey recipe with cream, cumin, fresh ginger, garlic and some tomato sauce), rice, roasted vegetables (sweet potato spears, halved brussels sprouts and cauliflower) and a salad with curried cashews, pear and dried cranberries.  For dessert: Tarte Tatin, an upside down apple tart with caramelized sugar.  It was delicious (and I can share recipes, for anyone who's interested).

table decorations

Richard (down left) is about to blow out his candles.  Janice is down right.  None of us look our ages, do we?!

We had a great time together, even though Janice was gone most of the day at work....she and I had to stay up til midnight talking.   So good to be together again (the last time we saw each other was about 13 years ago).

From Iowa to Illinois, just over the Mississippi

Thursday, 10/4

Our Walmart camping spot, just before dawn

We spent a good night at the Atlantic (IA) Walmart, even though we were far from the Atlantic (Ocean).  It continued to be quite windy in the night, and even sprinkled a little early in the morning, but the driving conditions were good--overcast skies kept the sun from glaring.  The traffic was pretty reasonable BUT there were a lot of trucks with wide loads who drove like crazies.  One of the wide loads had a proper caravan, with a little truck in front and one behind it, all with signs and lights and acting responsibly.  But there were three similar trucks all with sections of pre-fab houses on their trailers, and they were not only passing regular traffic, but passing the aforementioned well-behaved wide load truck.  It was incredible, there were maybe 18" between them, and only because the outer truck wheels were practically driving on the rumble strips so that they wouldn't knock into each other.  Fortunately the three house haulers decided to cool their jets at a rest stop and we didn't have to worry about them passing US anymore either.

We arrived in Moline, just over the Mississippi, at 2pm and parked ourselves in the driveway of friends Janice and Richard (Janice was one of Erika's first Waldorf nursery school teachers and Richard was pastor at the church where I was choir director for two years, all in CT).  They have a gorgeous maple tree beside their house which has turned New England red---my first red maple of this Fall.

As usual, the picture doesn't do it full justice.  It is a gorgeous red.  I missed my maple trees!!

We will be here for two nights, and can plug into their outlet.  Thank goodness, as it's going to be very cold at night and without our little electric space heater, we would be freezing.

Through Nebraska to Iowa....

Wednesday, 10/3

We woke to the sound of train whistles and geese honking (in the park).  As soon as the sun rose, we were on our way back to the interstate, traveling east.  Amazing how all of a sudden the terrain has become mostly flat with some rolling hills.

An endless ribbon of highway stretches before us now......

 Miles and miles and miles of hay and corn fields, punctuated with enormous feed lots and dairy farms.

A few of the thousands of cattle we saw in big lots along the highway.

Omaha Nebraska is a truly big city, with congested highways, shopping malls and sprawling suburbs.  But at some point you cross an invisible line into farmland again, and it is as if the city never existed.  We took a little shortcut off of the interstate onto a smaller Route 6, and for 30 miles passed nothing but farm after farm.  The terraced fields were quite beautiful, actually, and there were deciduous trees again "of the right height" (to quote Mitt Romney) which was a sight to see after months in the desert.  We FINALLY found a gas station (about 10 miles away from running out of gas) and met a townswoman ("Iowa born and raised!") who was so friendly and full of curiosity about us, asking questions in a way that was utterly UN-Massachusetts-y:  where were we from and what do we do, and how long have we been traveling and were our kayaks (sticking out of the back of the truck) locked?....we learned a lot about her too (she's an insurance agent, and they'd only been kayaking once this summer on the river because of the drought, and oh we sure hope we get more snow this winter), and all in the time it took to fill up the tank.   It took me a while to figure out that she wasn't interrogating us for some nefarious reason (such as confirming that we were tofu-eating, bleeding-heart liberals--practically communists!!-- and then running us out of town), but was just being nice.

We spent the night at a Walmart parking lot in Atlantic, Iowa.  Did a little shopping (of course), then listened to the debate streamed live via our home NPR station, WAMC.  Nils fell asleep half=way through.  Can you blame him?

Leaving Colorado--hello Nebraska

Tuesday, October 2

Today we woke to sunny skies and a persistent cool gusty wind....time to hitch up and finally leave this beautiful place.

We were on the road by 7:30, stopping along the way at the Estes Park Recycling Center (which might not have been the best place to visit with a 2 foot RV in tow) to unload all the glass and paper and aluminum cans we'd been collecting for weeks.   The drive out of the Rockies was beautiful....the mountains disappeared rapidly as we followed the winding river eastward.   Geologically, we watched a fast rewind of our total trip.....in 2 hours we were driving through flat farm country, past wheat and corn fields, enormous feed lots and one huge dairy farm.  We got onto I-80 in Nebraska and are spending the night at the Cody Park in South Platte, Nebraska. There's only one other RV here---we're surrounded by geese honking, the sounds of a ballgame in the distance and lots of train whistles (we're close to a big trainyard with feed silos).   The price is fantastic--$5/night.  There are no hookups at that rate, and it's supposed to be very cold tonight....we'll have to bundle

Our last day in the Rockies

Monday, 10/1

Today was our last full day in Estes Park.....I drove Nils (along with his bicycle) to the gorgeous Estes Park YMCA campus so that he could play a round of Folf (Frisbee Golf).  Here are some pictures I took at the first "hole":

See, I wasn't making this up....disc golf is for real

Nils, tee-ing off

So now you know all about Disc Golf.  Nils had a great time, although the course was really, REALLY hard---there were holes where he had to cover almost 800 feet in just 4 throws....he really got a workout and had a good time.  He biked downhill all the way home (just took 20 minutes).

I, in the meantime, had fun in downtown Estes park....explored a very nice quilt shop and a gorgeous yarn shop too.  The yarn shop owner told me that with over 2 million people visiting Estes Park every summer, she was glad for the Fall, when things slow down to normal.  It's no wonder so many visitors come here--it's in the midst of the Rocky Mountain National Park with all so many hiking trails and gorgeous views of the mountains...and downtown E.P. has more ice cream, candy and fudge shops per block than I've ever seen in my life.

On the way back to the RV I got gas, groceries, and saw a herd of elk at the side of the road.  What a lovely day.  Nils and I both remarked that it was very nice, but felt rather odd to be apart for a couple of hours after having been together night and day after day for the past 2+ months.  

RMNP, Ouzel Falls

Sunday, 9/30

We wanted a slightly easier hike than yesterday's, so we chose the Ouzel Falls trail which climbed 950 feet over 2.7 miles (one way) past a series of waterfalls, up a rocky path through the woods.  Not as intense as yesterday, but still a great workout.  It was sunny and 57 on the drive to the trailhead (and it didn't get any warmer than that for the rest of the day).  Because it was Sunday, the parking lot  was full of cars, but it didn't feel too crowded on the trail, fortunately.  Lots of families with small children reminded us of all the Sunday walks in the woods we did with our own children as they were growing up.

Nils at Cascade Falls (see how baggy his jeans are? They would just plain fall right off without a belt).

At times it felt like we were in fairy tale woods, most of the time within earshot of the water crashing through the rocks.  The air was crisp and cool and fresh, and smelled of spruce  (which always reminds me of Christmas).

I couldn't resist a photo of these twisted, braided roots, spilling into the path.

Nils, in front of Ouzel Falls.  We didn't see any Ouzels, but the waterfall was beautiful.

Again, we retraced our steps back to the trailhead....2 hours 40 minutes all together.   Hearing--and seeing--the white water made it that much more enjoyable.   We did get a few sprinkles in the last mile, but they passed quickly.  

Whitewater is LOUD!

On the drive "home" we saw a huge field of bright yellow aspens with mountains in the distance.  The Rocky Mountains are just indescribably beautiful.

Snow and glaciers in the distance

You can just barely see the mountains in the distance on this picture too.

We came home, ate and were all excited to dip into the hot tub, but it was closed.  What a disappointment!  Consolation: football, Ryder Cup and the movie Singin' in the Rain on tv.  All sort of at the same time (there was a lot of channel changing back and forth).   Tomorrow will be our last full day in the Rockies (or in Colorado, for that matter)--the great schlepp eastward begins on Tuesday morning first thing.

Summit Hike in the Rocky Mountains

Saturday, 9/29

Nils said, "let's do a summit hike!".   There were 4 to choose from---we picked the Twin Sisters Peaks, consisting of a gain of 2338 feet in elevation over 3.7 miles, to a total summit elevation of 11,428 feet. This would be the highest hike with the most elevation gain we've done so far, and we were psyched.

The hike began in the Roosevelt (Teddy) National Forest, a series of gentle switchbacks through thick spruce woods, so thick that the sun could not penetrate.  The air was cool and crisp and smelled amazing.  The path was littered with, well, rocks (we ARE in the Rocky Mountains, after all) of all sizes but not so many that the footing was overly difficult.  As we climbed higher and higher, the dead trees at the sides of the path became more and more sculptural and beautiful, like a giant bonsai.  it really had the look of a beautiful Japanese rock garden at times.  Until we reached the treeline, we couldn't see into the distance at all, just trees, trees and more trees.  But then, glimpses of white capped mountains in the distance.  Above the tree line we hiked switchback paths through scree, a mess of boulders, rocks and gravel to the summit, where a breathtaking panorama awaited us.

Our reward: an amazing view

Smiling Lisa, at 11,428 feet

The rock I was sitting on had been warming in the sun...felt really good to rest there a few minutes

There were about 20 people at the top, having a little picnic and enjoying the view (also a hopeful chipmunk, on the lookout for crumbs).  We did not linger long...the way up had taken us 2 hours 20 minutes, the way down was going to take 2 hours for sure.  So---back we went, exactly the way we'd gone up.  By the final mile my feet were hurting, my leg muscles were sore.  But it was a good feeling of accomplishment....I could not have done this hike two months ago.  We definitely left some pounds behind on THAT trail.

There were MANY patches of snow along the upper section of the path.

We came home tired and hungry.  After a delicious lunch (tempeh-thai noodle-broccoli-peanut stir fry) we headed to the hot tub, one of the benefits of this fancy-schmancy RV park--felt great after all the strenuous climbing.  We watched a movie on tv (we have cable here too!) and slept very well.

Crossing the Continental Divide

Friday, 9/28

We had the RV all hitched up and ready to go before bed last night, so we could leave quickly and easily this morning, since we'll have a long driving day today.    The scenery along the way was just gorgeous....the Colorado River flowed next to the highway for our first two hours or so.  At many points, LOTS of white water and rocks and turbulence (which made me think of our kayaking expedition on a different portion of the Colorado River and gave me the heebie-jeebies).  Also, the highway was built on such a steep mountainside that the lanes for oncoming traffic were propped above us, like an overpass (except that we were parallel to each other).

This is taken from the higher level (westbound), and you can see the lower level closer to the river (from Google images).

By 9:30am we reached the "Schnappszahl" of 90,000 miles on the odometer, which means we've driven 7,265 miles so far.  Can you believe it?!

The mountains got higher and more majestic as we approached the Continental Divide....covered in dark green spruce trees with brilliant yellow clumps of aspens.  In the far distance--snow-covered peaks.  Our temperature started out close to freezing this am (there was thick frost on the windshield) and reached a "high" of 39.  As we approached Vail, we climbed up a LONG incline over the Vail Pass Summit of 10,603 feet.  Shortly thereafter, driving between--and in the shadows of--two very tall mountains the temperature descended briefly to 32!!  That's life at high altitude for you.

First snow cap sighting from the car (I took this through the side truck window)

We crossed the Continental Divide about 1/4th of the way through the 2-mile-long Eisenhower tunnel, traveling at high speed.   Kind of anti-climactic to cross it while driving in a tiled, level tunnel but pretty amazing from an engineering standpoint.

We left the highway to go north toward the Rocky Mountain National Park, up and up and up, through old gold-mining towns on winding roads.  The aspens had all turned mostly brilliant yellow with the very rare red-orange burst of color for contrast.  The yellow is every bit as beautiful as the maples in Deerfield, but I miss the orange/red and hope there will still be some to see when we get home.

The aspen looked even brighter yellow than in this photo, just like the maples in New England

Lots of political signs along the road, mostly Republican.  Although I did see this hand-painted sign in one teeny town: "Buddha for Commissioner".  That just cracked me up.

We finally got to the Spruce Lake RV Park in Estes Park by 2pm.  We decided to splurge on a place with LOTS of amenities for our final days in the national parks....it's cold at night, and we wanted full hook-ups so that we can stay warm and comfy at night.  The RV park is only about quarter full, but I suspect that will change in the next few hours.