And we're back...

It's our last day on the road, today we're heading back to Boulder. It turns out that a friend of ours was just diagnosed with a brain tumor. Our daughter has been staying at her home, creating urgency to get back quickly. We've done the drive from Jackson to Boulder several times before, so we're not missing anything we haven't seen before. But this definitely puts a damper on our mood.

It's a beautiful drive, starting out driving over Teton Pass, driving thru Jackson and cruising US 287 all the way to Longmont, Colorado, just 15 miles from home. The landscape changes rapidly along this route, starting as jagged mountain range, and transitioning quickly to a smaller range of fragmented rock faces, then red rock hills and sagebrush prairies.


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We drove through the Wind River Reservation and stopped off in Lander for lunch at a local cafe. You really feel the recession in Lander: lots of main street businesses have closed down and there is a generally somber mood. It was amazing how much food they serve for $5.


After lunch we tanked up and drove straight to Rawlins, topped off the tank again for the milk run home, and got on I-80. At Laramie we turned south on 287, passing the fireworks stands, and bee-lined it down to Longmont. As the sun is getting low the landscape turns a vibrant mix of deep green trees and shades of brown, orange and red in the exposed rock.

Between Loveland and Longmont, I had the only real mechanical problem of the trip. It felt like the rear wheels were wobbling, like they had a flat. We pulled over to see what the problem was but couldn't find anything. We limped down the road to a gas station and turned off the engine. Still couldn't find anything wrong. I started the engine again, then drove around and everything was ok. By 8:30 in the evening we pull into the driveway.

It's good to be back home.


The last picture is Long's Peak at twilight, as viewed from Longview Farms in Loveland, Colorado.