Than crash bang boom!! Clouds were up ahead, suddenly we were in a terrible rain with lots of lightning... so glad we were safely on the ground and not in a small airplane in the middle of the clouds. I am very grateful my husband is such a safe pilot!!
Yeah we are getting closer~ I've always wanted a picture by a "Welcome to ...." sign, my sweet husband was nice enough to allow me to check this off my list of things I want to do. It was so pretty! Not only did I get the sign picture but I've now been to a new State!!
Just after 9 we arrived in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Mark found a wonderful and very relaxing lodge/B&B for us to spend a couple of days getting much needed rest from our world. We ate dinner at Cugino's and had an amazing Stromboli, I love vacation food!!
The next morning we got up and enjoyed a wonderful breakfast that we didn't have to cook or clean up after!!! It was great. We didn't have any plans, besides spending time together and seeing the town, so we asked the owners for advise. They suggested the river path that leads to the Yampa River botanic gardens. We enjoyed our stroll along the river, even if a few bikers almost took us out, and the gardens were lovely and so peaceful. I give the gardeners a gold star for it still being so beautiful so late in the season. At one point our peace was interrupted by a passing train, scared us pretty good. Not as good as the people we were by at that point, I seriously thought they were going to have heartattacks and I really didn't want to have to try and save them. Luckily they didn't!
Saturday afternoon we wandered around old town, at yummy lunch at Johnny B Good's Diner and who do you think we ran into... Benjamin Franklin & Abraham Lincoln! It was crazy!! We spent time thinking about life with them, they are wise men!!
We ended our day in town with a mouth watering dinner at the Epicurean, an amazing french cuisine restaurant! I know, us eating french food.... another shocker I love it!! I had an Endive (french cabbage) wrapped in bacon scrumptious!! Mark had some amazing tuna, so he said I wasn't in a fish mood so I didn't share his meal. Originally we had planned to go up the canyon to the natural hot springs, but our waitress informed us that bathing suits are optional after dark. That totally freaked us out. So after looking for a movie to see with no success we settled for coldstone and watching Willy Wonka on the Disney Channel.
Mark found a Gondola ride that takes you up the mountain so people can hike around with out busting their butts to make the 3 mile hike climbing close to 2500 feet in elevation and just enjoy the hiking trails at the top, what anamazing view. We decided to take advantage of our amazing surroundings Sunday morning before heading home. We tried to go Saturday afternoon but they closed 5 minutes after we finally found them so we settled for going Sunday. We figured a hike would be good before our drive home so we didn't get way sick of sitting.
We had enough time at once we reached the almost 10,000 foot high
peak to hike for a couple hours! It was so beautiful! The hiking was fun
but catching your breath that high up is really, really hard! I don't care
how in shape you are, there is much less oxygen up there!
There is a restaurant/bar & grill at the top of the Gondola
so we enjoyed the view before heading back down.
Back down the mountain, so glad we didn't hike. Pretty sure
it would have been 3 miles of torture, these picture do no justice
for how high we really got!
Sadly the time came that we head back home, we really could've stayed so much longer but alas life must return to normal. So we grabbed a quick burger and hit the road..
There are those signs you never want to see when driving down a road you've never been on before, especially when you are in a race with the clock to make it home
1- Road Work Ahead 2- Utah (not bad unless followed by) 3- Pavement ends abruplty (What the!!!) 4- Blast zone ahead.
Many things run through your mind when you see those signs in a row! Yes the pavement did end, very abruptly. I wish I had a picture of our faces when this happened I sure they were panic mixed with you've got to be kidding me!! We entered the blast zone but it being Sunday and all we didn't encounter any rocks being blown into the air. We did get to see some amazing landscape that we'd have totally missed otherwise.
We found PAVEMENT!! No thanks to Utah, we had to get back to Wyoming first!! I was so happy, you never appreciate the simple things in life till they end abruptly!
We had a pretty uneventful trip the rest of the way, which was just fine with us! We made it home at 9:04, exhausted and sore from hiking and than a 7.5 hour car drive, but we had so much fun and can't wait to go back someday. Only hopefully this time we can actually fly.
