Colorado

Colorado

It was a mountain. Amazing! How great is our God. This country is magnificent. We have seen deer and antelope, the plains, and now the majestic mountains. There is no way all of this could have happened by some cosmic accident.

I realized I would need to drive in about an hour and a half so I decided to take a nap. I hated to because I was afraid I would miss something. But I did sleep. I woke up when Pops pulled into a truckstop. His driving time was up. We were in Denver. Okay where are the mountains? Isn’t Denver the “mile high city?” Pops told me that as soon as we go around the building I would see mountains. Well, I did and I was excited but also a little nervous about having to drive now.

We started going up and up and up some more. I could not believe what I was seeing. They were so incredibly big. And houses were built right on the sides of them. The sun was starting to set so we were trying to get some pictures through the windshield. I hope we get something good. They are on Pops’ camera and I haven’t gotten to see them yet.

We drove for I don’t know how long, a long time. We kept passing “chain stations” those are places for the trucks to stop and put on their tire chains. And then there were red and white gates, like railroad gates that we saw that they put down when they close the highway due to snow. We came to a place where all trucks had to get over to do a brake check. I know what that means. We are going downhill. The sign said 8 miles of 6% grade. Trucks were to use low gears. No duh! I was a little scared. Yeah, like almost pee  my pants scared. I geared down to 9^th, still too fast. I geared down to 8^th then to 7^th. That did it. 7^th gear was holding me back without having to use my brakes. And I watched the cars zoom by and I watched the runaway truck ramps go by. Was I still scared? You betcha.

Finally we were to the bottom. Whew! I was over the Rockies. Hahaha   I’ll say that again. Hahahaha

We were going up again. Up, and up and up some more. We got up near the top and saw snow along the roads, at least a foot of snow. It wasn’t on the roads though, thank goodness.

Pops was on the phone with our good friend, Jeff. We were going down again only this time it was high jagged stone walls on both sides, a canyon. There was a river and a railroad going down through the canyon. It looked and felt like we were riding on the sides of cliffs. It reminded me of an episode of the Flintstones when Fred was driving on the mountains and the road got so narrow that he picked up his car and tiptoed around the corners. That’s what I felt like I needed to do. No kidding!

It went on for hours and hours. I was wishing that it wasn’t dark, but at the same time was glad that it was so I couldn’t see all the scary stuff I knew was right beside us. The speed limit is 75 mph whether you were going up a mountain, down a mountain, or through a canyon, or along a Cliffside, and there are no guardrails. I cannot believe we didn’t see hundreds of wooden crosses all over the place. I was just hoping that I wasn’t going to end up a wooden cross on the side of the road.

Pops went to lay down and go to sleep. Oh my, can I get away with driving 40mph? In some of the valleys I passed by some nice looking places. Vail was one of them. I know that according to the national enquirer that a lot of celebrities go there to ski.  It really looked like a nice place. I thought Jennifer Aniston was probably there somewhere. Well, she might be.

I was exhilarated. I wanted to see what I was missing. I cannot wait until daylight. I am so excited.