Thursday, 25th of April
2013
Craig, CO –
Denver, CO
Miles: 233
We left the town
around 8.17 am, it was cold when we were packing the car. In the town
we saw the temperature was 35 degrees. What happened to our warm
California? We drove through town of Craig and it looked sad. There
was quite a few shops of taxidermy (applies to whole state of
Colorado so far), but otherwise nothing really pretty or charming. J.
had her mind set on breakfast in Steamboat Springs (a friend told her
about it). It was about 50 minutes to Steamboat, there was snow
scattered on the mountains, time to time we saw some type of
settlement (it looked really sad), collection of trailers, beaten up
houses or something like that. The landscape was relatively pretty,
but because of the season, winter mostly gone and spring not here, it
did not look greatest. A lot of cows and horses. The town. The
restaurant was on the main street, we found it and we as well found
out that is was closed for a day for cleaning. J. was crushed. We
were sitting in the car watching people cleaning windows. J. was set
on having breakfast so we found another place (Creekside) and had
breakfast there. It was kind of pricy but we liked it, even I had a
burger for a late breakfast. From there, we drove through the town to
the visitor's center just to found a sign saying that they are closed
for remodel (for a month). It had to be our lucky day. We drove back
to the town and followed the sign for Fish Creek Falls (3.5 miles).
The road went through some big houses neighborhoods and there was
more snow. The parking lot for the falls was open (partly) and there
were two cars. We parked and followed the sign for the overlook, the
trail was still mostly snow, but it looked really pretty (sun and
snow). It was short walk and we were standing above big hole and
looking for the falls. It took few seconds to realize they were
really big on the side and still partly covered with snow. Walk
around and to the bottom of the falls (on snow again). Really nice.
Back to town and a visit to “iconic” 100 year old western store
(shoes, boots, clothing and some other monkey business). We left the
town. We quickly stopped by the Forest service office (they were
advertising information) but it was not helpful. And there was still
a lot of snow around. The landscape was pretty, the drive became
somewhat long and boring. We were going up and up. There were two
options to get to the interstate. One of them was going pretty high
and was twistier (I did not want to take that one). We stopped for a
coffee and gasoline. Town of Kremmling. Apparently in that town the
navigation (J.) did not work and we took the high road. Couple small
towns, some bigger ski resorts and snow. A lot of snow. And up and
down. Berthoud Pass was 11315 feet elevation. Our brakes were
suffering. For a bathroom break we found some picnic area just past
the pass (really snowy, but really pretty). At that time we were
pretty much done with the worse twists. Interstate 70. For a moment
we were completely stopped as there was some tunnel construction and
then spent some time in very slow traffic. Drive to Denver. We had a
motel on the east side of Denver (by airport). The city did not look
like much from the distance. We got to enjoy some rush hour traffic
(5.06 pm). We were both really tired and not feeling well (maybe
altitude). We made few turns around the downtown Denver (looked
pretty nice and interesting). We drove to the big park close by, the
city still looked interesting. The park was boring, we did not stop.
As we had enough, we got on Colfax street and were heading to the
motel. Leaving central Denver, we had a feeling like being in
Detroit. The street looked pretty bad, there were many abandoned
buildings and it looked ugly. Again, two faces of big city. With very
mixed experiences we ended up close to the airport in the motel. I
had to do my last schools exam. Just fine evening and night.
