Trip 2 — Colorado Adventures – Part 1 — Part 2
In the middle of a hot August in Sun Lakes, we loaded up our RV and our little car and headed off to Colorado!
This first group of pictures is from Colorado Springs and the surrounding area. The first day, 8/21/18, we visited Helen Hunt State Park. We had never heard of it, but just happened upon it on our drive around.
It happened that Helen Hunt State Park offers some fun hiking! While the sky was smoky from the surrounding forest fires, we were safe. The light was interesting for some of the pix.
After we finished exploring this park, we took off again on our search for Cripple Creek. This time, we found it!
On the 23rd, we awoke to clear, beautiful, blue sky! The winds had changed and all of the smoke was gone!
We took advantage of this and drove up Pike’s Peak. Partway. Yeah, the winds had changed so that it was too windy to go to the top. They told us this AFTER we had paid $30 to get up there.
Our camp was Garden of the Gods RV Resort and it was quite literally walking distance to the Garden of the Gods public park. After we came down from Pike’s Peak, we did a drive-about through Garden of the Gods. We hiked a little there, too.
On 8/24, we met Angie and George at their condo in Dillon. How beautiful it was up there, and what a fine time we had with Angie and George! They stayed with us for a couple of days and then left us on our own there for the rest of the week.
Where was our RV at this time? We had a little refrigerator issue and we took it to Camping World for them to assess it. $50 for their diagnosis and free storage for a week!
We took a fun hike while we were in the area. So pretty and it was a perfect day. I know that these pics are dark, but I like them that way!
In Leadville, we discovered the National Mining Hall of Fame & Museum. Many fascinating mining displays and artifacts!
On 8/31, we drove over to the other side of Denver to the Rocky Mountain National Park, just for a day trip. It was raining in parts of the park, but we managed to stay dry and enjoy our day. Hint: If you’re going to RMNP, do bring your own food. We were starved!
The following day, we headed into the city of Denver to see a few sights. We went to the Denver Art Museum and to the zoo! My flower pictures are always better than my animal pix.
I’m thinking that we left Strasburg, CO on or about 9/5. We headed up northwest, and I got a couple of road shots. Then we arrived at our camp in Vernal, Utah. I know, not Colorado, but we did visit plenty of Colorado treasures from this base camp! Near Vernal, we found some awesome petroglyphs.
These were on a trail that we found just pulling off the side of the road. Note that this is after we’d parked the rig in our camp.
We really loved Vernal. Our “plan” was to spend maybe 3 nights there, do Dinosaur NM and then head out. But Vernal has LOTS to see, and we ended up staying a week!
This was at Dinosaur National Monument on the Utah side. This is where they are actually quarrying bones out of the rock.
Vernal is a lovely town! We loved walking from our camp into town, dining at the local establishments, and enjoying the beautiful flowers which adorned the main streets while we were there. These were shot on 9/7.
On 9/7, we went back to Dinosaur, this time heading into the Colorado section of the park. That’s where I took these pictures. I think that the overlook here was the one off Harpers Corner. A ranger turned us on to this. It was getting ready to rain, but again, we escaped!
And now I hope you’ll join us for Part 2 of the Colorado Adventures!
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