Sunday, July 15. We left Winter Park, heading over the pass and down towards Denver. We stopped first in Golden and a Safeway across the street from where I worked when I first moved to Colorado in '81. It was interesting to see the changes in the town. Foss Drug was always a fixture, and the Foss family owned almost as much of the town as the School of Mines and Coors. But their drugstore was gone, the building now some sports store.
We then headed for the Ship Rock Grille at the Red Rocks Amphitheater to meet up with Vickie and Bill & Marilyn. Sharon and Vickie met back in the 70s in WP, while we met Bill and Marilyn on an MS 150 ride in Daytona when they were still living in Jacksonville. We caught up on life over great food, and afterwards we got to show off Ernie.
Bidding dear friends goodbye, it was only fitting that the sky started crying as we left Red Rocks and got on the interstate, I-70 to I-76 to I-25. Sunday afternoon traffic in Denver was medium, but the downpour slowed most everything down as visibility and traction diminished. Heading North we shared the road with half the cars returning to Denver on I-25, and we never had a significant slowdown, Hallelujah!
I-80 Westbound was closed when we got to the exit in Wyoming, but I was happy to take the old Happy Jack Road to Curt Gowdy SP. The rain was transitioning lighter and lighter, and stopped as we turned into the park. We found a lovely site by one of the three reservoirs, and miracle of miracles, we found level without pulling out the chocks.
It's funny, when we found the site a guy was walking around the shoreline before walking back to his fifth wheel monster trailer. We parked while we discussed the site, and then we watched him leave the site he was in up the hill and take the site next to our choice. He backed it expertly right in front of Ernie. We figured he would also have a generator for something that big, so we drove away to find a quieter site. But as we watched from afar he seemed unhappy with his trailer on such unlevel and soft ground, and left the loop entirely for better options. So we drove back to take our site again, and stayed, hopeful our evening would be rumble free.
We got our rain-washed bikes out and rode a green trail around one end of the reservoir, and scoped out some other trails. The temperature was around 50 after the rain, with wind and humidity, so we headed back to the warmth of Ernie for a nice dinner of stuffed portibello mushrooms.
Bunnies and Canada Geese were our only neighbors, and that was fine. We took a walk as dusk settled, avoiding the goose poop, and checked out the vault toilet for our loop. What kind of people trash toilets? The last campground we were at had a poop smeared women's toilet, and here it's the men's. I can't imagine what prompts someone to do this.
Pictures from Red Rocks are at https://photos.app.goo.gl/mwTtaEQkyWM7zhGK9
Pictures from Curt Gowdy are at https://photos.app.goo.gl/uL32ZD4GY4Zgey6V8
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