Colorado, first stop on the way home

Day 43    May 18, 2015

Morning in Moab

This is a beautiful day for travel.  As we awoke, we looked east to the La Sal Mountains as see the snow capped peaks and to the west the sun outlined the red rock edge of the Canyonland rim.  We hit the road by 6:30 for Loveland, CO. 

Looking East in Moab

As we drove through Moab, we wave by.  This is a great outdoorsy town.  Heading north to I-70 I notice that there was slight wind behind us.  This is not exactly what I wanted to see at this hour, knowing how winds build during the day.  Hitting I-70, I was surprised that the wind wasn’t really a factor.  Our first scheduled stop is to be Grand Junction, CO for fuel.  After about 45 miles we are driving along the side of the Colorado River and we will follow it all the way to mountains in Colorado.  The Grand Junction valley is beautiful and so clean and green looking compared to the deserts of Utah and California that we just left.  Just after Grand Junction we began the climb that would take us through the Rockies.  Our first climb is to Vail Pass, 10,662’.  Our RV really struggled to climb this “hill”. 

Vail Pass

We actually had our speed drop to 30 mph and it really wasn’t wanting anymore of this climbing.  At the top of Vail Pass we stopped for lunch at a snow covered rest area.  Getting back on the road, believing that we had finished our climbing, we begin a nice little decent.  That didn’t last long because we were starting up to the Loveland Pass.  This ascent was not a steep as before but, still the RV struggles in the thinning air.  Again we have our speed drop to 30 mph and finally we reach the top which wasn’t really the top but the Eisenhower Tunnel, elevation 11,990’.  Passing through the tunnel was a breeze even for a vehicle our size.  Exiting we notice a line of traffic on the oncoming side that extended about 2 miles down the mountain because of some construction at the tunnels entrance. 

Top of the Rockies

Yea, the climbing is over.  Descending toward Denver, we were met with an extremely dense fog with a visibility of less than a ¼ mile.   Since we go down mountains slowly, we ducked into the slow lane to avoid being rear ended.  Shortly, I came upon a tractor-trailer who was traveling about our speed so I tucked in behind him and let him lead the way.  About 10 miles west of Denver we broke out of the fog and from there we sailed to Loveland.