I-70 west bound-Gods post card!

Saturday, September 2

We arrived at the H & H Motor lodge in the darkness, and when we awoke, there were mountains and mines and tons of little Motor Lodges and Motels, right out of the 50's....what a great locale.
We were across from the Argo Gold Mine.

 They offered tours, but the old mines in Colorado make for tight spaces, so we ate breakfast at Marion's Restaurant, what a great place, was the local hangout. The morning temp was 46 degrees, that was the coldest we had been since we left Mich, we were at around 6,000 ft elev., and we are still wearing sandals.
Full of food, fuel, and snax we got on 1-70 west.

I-70 west takes you through  and near the winter playground of the wealthy and fabulous, ski towns like Vail, Breckenridge, Loveland, and Glenwood Springs. There is a Carbondale, CO around this area too!

We drove up to over 9,000 foot elevations on this trip, many 6-7% up hill and down hill grades with sweeping curves and emergency truck run offs, which was great because most of these down hill runs ran about 6 miles. I have never seen so many truck run-off lanes!

We could see the ski lifts and runs from I-70, and went through the Eisenhower Tunnel just past Loveland Co..

Built in 1973

Apparently it is easier to blow your way through these mountains than go over them, or maybe it's the cost....cheaper to blow a hole through than pave over!

Breckenridge is at 9097 ft elevation.

We wound our way down the mountains and stopped at the most beautiful rest area!!! Bike paths and a clear bubbling creek, a boat ramp. It was at 5746 elevation, 69 degrees, sweater came off and we sat on a boulder and enjoyed the sun. Of course, we took pictures!!

This is the view while driving down the road! How could we not stop?

This is the view looking up the creek!  

The water is soooo clear! I am from the land of muddy water so this is amazing to me!

There was a couple of bridges on the path so you could wind around the creek and see it from all angles. This is looking off the bridge, looking back towards the creek.

The water was COLD, clear, and relaxing. These are great REST areas!

We continued on our merry way, through the mountains, up and down the mountains, ears popping like crazy! Then we came out into the flat rocky area known as UTAH.

We arrived at the welcome center 40 miles from the state line! Almost 80% of Utah is government owned and open to the public. that means it is owned by....US! Amazing!  There really were looooong stretches of nothing going on but fences, red rock and prairie. We headed for Moab. This is a section all it's own. The next post will be beautiful Moab.

See you soon