A Saturday Drive

Yesterday we took a drive, happy to spend the day just looking and talking and relaxing. The drive had been suggested by the custodian at school - so a big shout out to Consuelo for the excellent recommendation. The colors have really started to change, and we wanted to check it out. We were told the drive was not for the faint of heart, and since Nick is not (which implies I am, and is probably pretty close to the mark), we decided to give-it-a-go.

The drive started out in Eagle, went west on 70 to Glenwood Springs, which is always beautiful going through the canyon. At Glenwood, we caught 82 east and headed down to Aspen. Nick tells me Lance Armstrong just purchased a place in Aspen. It's probably safe to say we will never be able to afford a place in Aspen; I balk at the $8.50 it cost us for one turkey sandwich on plain, store-bought bread. Anyway, from Aspen, you continue on 82 east where there are lots of viewing places alongside the road. So we stopped a number of times, to look, take pictures, let the dogs pee, and have lunch - the one sandwich we were splitting with 2 bags of chips :-)

The lunch stop happened at Independence Ghost City. It wasn't very scary, as Ghost Cities are prone to be, but it was beautiful. It's crazy the little towns people set up in the 1800's. Independence was settled because of the gold mining opportunities. I'm not sure gold would have been enough to convince me to settle at that particular point...10,000 ft + in altitude, I'm sure winters were not very forgiving. But it's very interesting anyway, and they still had some buildings left standing, so it was cool to look at.

After lunch, we continued on up a steep drive. I only questioned the ability of two cars to be on the road at the same time once...so the road wasn't as bad as I had thought it might be. It was at least paved the whole way, which is more than I can say for some of the other expeditions we have been on! At the top of the pass we got out and walked around a bit. We had made it above the treeline and there wasn't much color at this point. We did see snow, but not much else.

We were both apparently feeling pretty adventurous, because I drove us down from the top of the pass back to Eagle. The drive down brought us back into some beautiful colors. Nick was taking pictures out the window like crazy. It was an awesome fall day. We went through Leadville, Minturn and Red Cliff, and finally stopped in Avon to shop for a bit before heading home.

It didn't seem like we should have been too worn out, but we were pooped. And so were the dogs. We capped off the excellent day with a trip out for dinner to a place in Eagle. The lettering on the building reads "Mexican Food." Tiffany (from work) had suggested it, and said it actually has a name "Mi Pueblo" but for some reason that name is not on the building. It was great food though, and we came home full and satisfied with such an awesome day.



Side note: You can always click on a picture within the blog to see it bigger :-)