Day 25: Over the Rockies

Yesterday afternoon, we visited Rifle Falls State Park, just four miles from where we were staying.  The ranger at our park said that we MUST see the falls.  And they were very nice.
There were also limestone caves to explore.

While there, the wind started gusting up, so back at our campsite, we had dinner inside and skipped the campfire we had planned.  Having checked on the weather, which indicated rain during the night, we also put everything away---chairs, mat, etc.  

.... which was a good thing, as the rain moved in during the wee hours.  At 3 am we were awakened by the flapping of the cover over the slide-out, and to be safe we pulled the slide in, giving us a much smaller space but without fear of a tear in the cover.  And at 7:00, it was 41 degrees with steady rain.  Even Ranger refused to get out of bed for his walk.

The rain let up a little around 10:00 and we set off to cross the mountains to Denver, following I-70.  What a drive!  Miles and miles of uphill, with rain continuing for the first 100 miles.  We went over two passes, one over 10,000 feet (at Vail), the other 11,000 feet (at Loveland).  The poor RV chugged along at 25 to 30 mph, working as hard as it could to pull the CRV up those mountains.  (And of course, poor Dan was shifting and watching the RPM and so forth, while trying to be patient with our slow progress.)

It was definitely autumn in the higher elevations.

And of course, then it was down, down, down....through miles of curves.  Two hundred miles of stress and we arrived at our site for the next three nights---Cherry Creek State Park, on the east side of Denver.  Being east it is flat and open.  But we have an excellent site, tucked back in the trees.

We are now awaiting the arrival of Kelly's friend Beckie Walter who lives in Denver and is coming over to have dinner with us. 

Looking forward to the next few days with good Wi-fi, hot showers, and a very nice laundry!