Thank you, Colorado DOT

Highway rest stops are not usually something to write home about, unless they have been closed or especially gross.  But today, we found one on US 160 between Del Norte and Creede. Obviously the caretakers, who live on site, really care about what they do.

In the women's room, this quilted hanging was above the toilet. Note the automatic flushing sensor just below the decoration.

There was even a frame around the mirror and the waste basket is decorated.

And look at the beautiful flowers outside. We were really impressed. It was something good to write home about.

Great Place to Stay

There are two RV campgrounds in Creede. We have stayed twice at Mountain Views RV right in Creede. It is very nice and overlooks the town itself. But it is all gravel and very uninteresting. For this two-week stay, we decided to try Antlers Ranch, a restaurant, resort and RV campground. It is 5 miles out of town.

This is the entrance.

And this is our RV site.

Even the drive through the resort to the campground is interesting.

The Rio Grande River runs right through the resort and has a bridge to reach the other side of the river. You can see the restaurant across the river.

There is a pond that is stocked for fishing.

We are at nearly 9,000 ft elevation here and the wildflowers are beautiful. These are two hillsides we see as we take our daily walks.

Wonderful Colorado

We have been in Colorado for over a month, enjoying time with family and friends in the Denver area, where we lived most of our lives. This week we left the front range (basically the area along I-25), and traveled west into the real beauty of this state, the mountains.

We drove into the clouds as we went up and over LaVeta Pass. In other places, you might call it fog, but when you go up to 9,000 feet above sea level, it is clouds you are driving through.

After spending a night in Alamosa, we headed to the small silver mining camp of Creede where we will be spending two weeks, attending the Creede Woodcarvers Rendezvous and exploring the beautiful area.

Look at the beautiful setting for the town of Creede.

We are really looking forward to our time in this part of the state, where we have camped and RVd many times in the past.

Walk Around the Lake

We wanted an interesting place to do our daily 10,000 steps, so one day we returned to Evergreen Lake, where we saw the elk when our son Doug and his girls came to visit. There is a path all around the lake and we walked around, both ways.

The small lake was built by the City of Denver as part of Denver's mountain parks. It is very picturesque.

Most of the trail is gravel on the side of the lake. One section is a boardwalk over wetlands.

We saw lots of people on paddle boards and others fishing.

There were other small water craft out there, too.

Many homes have been built on the slopes above the lake.

We couldn't see all of them, but we did see some long sets of stairs some had built into the hillside.

One yard had this gate. Someone must have a real sense of humor.

In the first photo below, you see how the lake seems to just stop or disappear. We wondered what was happening there.

Then we saw the waterfall over the lake's dam.

The path took us to the bottom of the dam, where we saw this statue.

We enjoyed our walk in this beautiful spot just outside the Denver metro area.

A Nice Little City

Thursday, we decided to check out the small city of Golden. If you aren't from Colorado, that name might not mean much to you, unless you are a fan of Coors beer. We didn't take a tour of the brewery, been there done that.

This is the iconic Golden Arch, welcoming visitors to the main street in Golden.

We checked out the downtown area. There, we found a trail along Clear Creek (the source of the Rocky Mountain spring water Coors uses) and enjoyed a number of bronze statues.

This is a miner and his mule. Gold was discovered west of Golden, along Clear Creek.

Here is a small musical group, entertaining passers-by. And a young girl trying to mount her horse.

I loved these little cow pokes. I had to back up quite a ways to get the fisherman and his flyfishing pole.

Of course, there is a statue of Aldolph Coors, founder to the brewery.

We could see the brewery nearby.

We also found an office building with these two cans flanking the entry. In 2005, Molson beer of Canada and Coors merged. Thus the cans of those two beers. In 2007, Coors and Molson merged with Miller brewing, working to compete with Budweiser. With today's popularity of micro brews, I wonder how all those mergers are making out.

There is a small children's water slide and wading area along Clear Creek.

This section of Clear Creek is called the whitewater park.  We saw a number of kayaks as we walked along the creek.

We also saw this attractive area, dedicated to Holly Coors,  She was the wife of Joseph Coors, president of Coors Brewing in the early 2000s.

These two little girls were enjoying the water, under close supervision of their mother.

State Park Camping

We love staying in Colorado State Parks. Many of them have 50-amp, full-hookup sites and your neighbor is a long way away. There are two very nice parks on the south side of Denver, Chatfield and Cherry Creek, and we have stayed in them each year since we started full-time travel in 2009. In the past, we usually came to Colorado in September. To get our favorite sites, we had to make our reservations in March. This year, our plans called for a visit in June. On the last weekend of January, I went online to make our reservations. Would you believe our favorites sites weren't available and at Chatfield we couldn't even stay in our favorite loop for 10 days straight? We had to settle for an electric-only site over the first weekend we were there.

Obviously, these parks are so popular in the summer, that every weekend is reserved months in advance--you can reserve sites 6 months in advance.

We like state parks because of the large sites, because there are lots of paths for walking and biking and there is lots of grass and flowers around. Even deer and other wildlife. Often, there is a lake or stream. Great!

Some people think Colorado State Parks are too expensive. A full-hookup site in either of the parks here near Denver costs $26 a night. Daily park admission is an additional $9. Since we are Colorado residents, we purchased an Aspen Leaf Pass for people age 64 and older. It covers our daily pass and it saved us at least $200 for the 24 nights we were in state parks. It also gives us $3 off each night in the campground, Sunday through Thursday.

For non-residents, our campsites would have cost $35 a night, including the daily pass. Expensive, but nothing compared to the $64 a night we are paying at the commerical park Dakota Ridge in Golden. The park is neat and clean and we have green grass out front. Unfortunately, they are side-by-side sites and we share the grass with another RV. We needed a reservation in the area for the 4th of July and couldn't get anything in a state park, so we settled for this. As anyone who lives in an RV or travels extensively knows, Memorial Day, 4th of July and Labor Day weekends require advance reservations.

Today, we drove on I-70 away from the mountains. The traffic going west into the mountains was three lanes of slow moving cars. Every motel, camp site and probably even boon-docking site must be taken for the weekend. We're glad we have a place.

These are the trials and tribulations of RVing. Isn't it awful? We could have stayed in our house and always had some place to stay. I think even $64 is better than that, at least for us.

Seeing Friends

The last two days, we have had good meals and great visits with couples we have know for nearly 50 years. Both had attended our 50th anniversary party, but we didn't have enough time to really talk to anyone that day.>
Monday, we met Dave and Kathy for lunch at P.F.Chang's.

Kathy and I both had the lobster tacos. The menu said the tacos had lobster and jicama. I'm not sure if the small white taco shells were cooked jicama or if it was cut up and served with the lobster in the shell. Whatever, they were spicy and good.

John had a chicken salad. I didn't get a picture of Dave's hot chicken dish. John said his was good and it was certainly more filling than my tacos.

Today, we met Larry and Betty at Ophelia's Mexican Restaurant in Olde Town Arvada for a late breakfast. The location was chosen purely because we all like Mexican food and it was halfway between our campground in Aurora and their home in Longmont. It was an excellent choice, even if it was made purely for convenience.

Everybody else had the breakfast burrito.

I had the green chili omelet.

Both days, we talked until we were embarrassed to keep the table occupied for any longer. We had a great time with both couples.

Since we arrived in the Denver area, we have spent time with our son Eric and his family who live here; we spent 5 days with our son Doug and his daughters who we haven't seen for 4 years; we have celebrated our anniversary with over 40 family and friends; visited with some of those family members at John's sister Cindy's 30th anniversary; and met two couples for a meal.

For two people who spend most of their time alone together, rarely saying much more than a brief "howdy do" to the people we encounter, this has been a fun and intense time. We look forward to quiet time alone, time to regroup--and maybe time to eat a little less. We are grateful for all our family and friends. We also are grateful for the relationship we have shared for 50+ years and having time to pay attention to that again.