West to Colorado!

I left you in the NE corner of Oklahoma.  We have been steadily moving west since that time to be in place in Eugene, Oregon on Saturday.  We first went to Salina, KS on a hot, hot day, touching 100df every so often, short night then on to Goodland, KS on the western edge of Kansas, it's a very big state!  But we found a really nice spot in a KOA there.

Nice!

We left pretty early the next morning as the forecast was for strong winds.  We thought for a little while that we had beat it, but no, when we turned directly west for Fort Collins with at least a 100 miles to go, the winds were gusty directly from the south at 30-40mph, made for a long trip being constantly buffeted.  But as we neared FoCo, things moderated some.

We were visiting our daughter, Kelly there and she came over soon after we arrived to the very nice Fort Collins Lakeside KOA, although they are some sticklers about visitors.  It's their business and their rules but a $10 charge per person even for a 10 minute visit seems a bit much.  They must have been burned in the past somehow.  Other than that nice wide sites, plenty long, fishing lakes, very clean and well kept.  We will definitely go back.

Our site

One of the fishing lakes

Jan and Kelly, yes, except for this pose we distanced

We even decided the next day to do something Jan and I hadn't done yet, go out to lunch.  Kelly suggested a taco place that had a big patio, big tables, and lots of distancing, so we gave it a go.  Turned out excellent, we felt safe and comfortable and the tacos were good too.

Our first lunch out

After a very nice visit, a bit short we were on our way next to Yampa River State Park west of Steamboat Springs.  

We had a choice on how to go, on what looked like a very windy and narrow Rte 14 that would be fairly direct or way around up to Laramie and down.  After a bit of research, we opted for the narrow road along the Cache La Poudre river, and man we were glad.  It turned out to one of the most awesome roads we've been on, and might be our favorite right now.  And believe me, that says a lot, as Jan and I have been on a LOT of roads over all these years:-)  

As soon as we got on the road and saw the river we had high hopes.  There was almost no traffic so we were able to just mosey along and enjoy the awesome views and scenery.  The river was raging pretty good with the runoff.

Our first glimpse of the river

We stopped here and there, pull offs are abundant, fishing access is abundant as well, future plans......

A cool tunnel

Pulled off by a raging waterfall

It got very narrow in places with jagged rock walls, we were thankful for no traffic.

We started looking a spot for lunch and found a humdinger!  Lots of room to pull off, a beautiful perch to sit above the water on an absolutely gorgeous day!

Our lunch spot

Our real lunch spot!

It was fantastic, we continued and climbed over Cameron Pass at 10,276' up to where we could see snow on the mountains.  We even saw a moose.

The mountains got a little more jagged as we went until we broke out into meadows.

Wow, right?

Up on the high meadows before Steamboat Springs

Then up and over Rabbit Ears Pass at 9426', and down, down into and through Steamboat Springs to Yampa River State Park, a very nice park along the river with only electric.  By cocktail hour the temp was down into the high 40's, and we woke to 36df!  Wow, from the hundreds to 30's in a few days.  One delightful, slow day here and then off to OR.

Our very nice site at Yampa