George had a great day of riding. First part of the ride was to go over the continental divide, which was a beautiful ride. He took his time going up (was in total tour mode, even took some breaks while looking for moose. I was bummed out in the morning as I could not go riding. I did feel much better as far as the whole altitude (I don't like the word) sickness. I was also not happy that the only thing in the area, I could find interesting to do required a lot of driving (in the opposite direction to where George was riding), "Rocky Mountain National Park". But it turned out to be surprising an awesome (my favorite park so far) place to visit. It started out by me finding out that its a free day (otherwise the cost is $20. Since I really don't like to pay for site seeing, it was a great news. The park has wild life.... yeah... it was great as I got to see Elks and Moose a few times, just hanging out in the wild. The drive up to the peak (which was about 12,000 ft., approx. 2 miles above the sea level) was gorgeous. One of the prettiest drives I have ever been on. What made it more fun (and a little scary) was that there was no ridge or anything to block the views as you ascend up on these very windy and curvy roads. I did a couple of little touristy hikes to check out the views and get to the highest elevation for the area. There was a lot of snow there, I saw a few people cross country skiing there. Crazy to see all this snow in mid June and of course some crazy bicyclists there too (then again, lot of people think that we are crazy in our own way too). I followed the internet advice to spending some time at high altitude and then coming down and sleeping at lower altitude. I was bummed that I only got to do about 30 min. of back country hike, which was also really beautiful. I had to leave early as the drive to pick up George was about 3 hrs., since he was really booking today. He took full advantage of the nice day and not only just crossed the state line, but went about 20 some miles further. I really wanted to go back and visit the park again but it is impossible as its very far away from the direction we are headed. What makes it worse is that in these small towns, there is only one road connecting you to places. So, sometimes you have to go all around to get to where you are going.
Colorado so far is my favorite state, especially for the scenery. Its very pretty and different scenery. The exciting thing is that we still have other places to visit that may beat the views (such as Yellowstone Park, Grand Tetons and also Oregon state). Lots of Ranches in the northern part of the state, people seem to be pretty serious about the fishing and water sports. Lots of outdoor activities. Strangely, the towns in Colorado are either very touristy or completely desolated. George was not entirely crazy about this state as the road surface was not the best and he thought that the scenery was nice but he likes more vegetation.
We went from Silverthorne, CO to Encampment, WY
Total Miles: 98
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