Note: It’s been a while! We got wound up in the excitement of Colorado, friends, and Anna’s birthday! I’ll try to catch up in the next two days as we head across Kansas.
Leaving this part of CO for another, we headed deep into big mountain territory. The climbs were fine and sometimes unnoticeable when we were at 11,000 feet, like when we headed through Silverthorne. It seemed weird to have a large town in the middle of so many mountains. They had everything from Amazon trucks to a Lowes. The peaks were evident and there were even subdivisions with houses that were the same…but different. We stopped for gas in Leadville—squeezing our way into a spot and backing up to pull out of it—and then found a little shoulder to stop for the quick pee. Back on the road and we realize we are going down for quite some time and wondering when we would start going up again. The Atlas says we will go over a pass at 11,318 feet at Monarch Pass. It turned out it was a 6-mile increase at probably a 5/6% grade to get to the top and Lady Tahoe did a good job.
Things we did:
- Keith and I tried sleeping on the other side of the bed last night and I think it helped my neck, he said he was still sliding into the bend in the mattress, however. We might be sleeping head to toe tonight, who knows!?
- We took our time eating and getting ready to head out. Like I said before, the routine of making lunches, putting things away, securing, and doing the check list is becoming normal
- The girls played on the playground and again fighting and hitting began to happen. This time we just put them in their car seats early and they began the trip about 20 minutes before we headed out
- We headed out around 9:30 am
- We moved into to deep mountain territory (not sure the locals call it that)
- Anna cut her hair (I think)—there is a very straight edge on the “half up’ part of her hair…hmmm
- Set up and explored the facilities at the KOA Gunnison: pet the donkeys, met the sheep, played on the playground.
- Ordered pizza at like 4pm
- Painted
- Hung out and did a load of laundry
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