Sept. 8, 2010 Jefferson County Fairground Campground, Golden CO (Denver)

We took a drive today, leaving the trailer sit at the campground, we took the dogs with us. We took some lunch with us so we wouldn’t have to leave the dogs in the truck and headed for the mountains. And we did find mountains! We drove thru Rocky Mountain National Park. Before we reached the pinnacle of one of the mountains, one sign said we were 2 miles above sea level. Another sign said 11,8++ feet, and we still went up some more, so it must have been at least 12,000 feet.

I (Karen) don’t like heights to begin with, then when you are driving within a couple of feet of sheer drop-offs, I was terrified. I kept my eyes to the inside of the turns and insisted Larry keep his on the road! We stopped at a few of the outlooks and the scenery was beautiful. We saw a couple of herds of elk and two moose.

Harry protected us from the elk that were crossing the road. He just went crazy and kept watching for a while expecting to see more. We came thru Estes Park (pretty, but a tourist trap of a little town), thru Boulder and on back to the trailer. It was about a six hour drive covering a little over 200 miles.

The weather was in the 80’s here in Denver today. We saw a variety of weather on our mountain loop. In one small town where we were stopped during road work, we watched a rain come in from over the mountain and the temperature dropped about 12 degrees from 64 to 52 within about 15 minutes. We hadn’t thought to take any jackets, so we didn’t stay outside very long anywhere.

Thanks to Burnell, we have identified unknown crop from yesterday, as milo. I think I have seen it a few times in our area, but it was a very big crop in Kansas.