Denver CO - 9978 Miles

Actually we're in Golden, CO, just west of Denver, but that's close enough. Heading south on I-25 from Cheyenne we saw countless hard-core bikers headed north to Sturgis for the rally. We also saw a few wimps hauling their bikes behind their SUV's. I'm assuming they'll park about 50 miles out and ride the bikes in to avoid the shame. Since the drive to Denver takes well under two hours via interstate, we veered into the mountains to make it a five hour drive.

We passed through Estes Park along the way. It mirrored Jackson, WY, in that far too many people were there for the size of the town. Wanting to avoid the mobs we kept driving. We did make a stop in Nederland. About 1400 people live in town at an elevation over 8000 feet. The small downtown was comprised of coffee shops, restaurants, bars, and a few art/antique/souvenir stores. It was nice but didn't really seem to have a reason to exist. When we got to our hotel we mentioned to the desk clerk we stopped in Nederland and she said, "Oh, Nederland. That's a nice place. It's populated by draft dodgers who went there to hide out in the '60's and never left". I guess that's as good a reason for a town to exist as any.

I didn't take any pictures on the drive. It just seemed like, "More snow capped peaks, more mountain waterfalls, more canyon vistas, blah, blah, blah." I think that's a sign we need to wind this trip up pretty soon.

We spent the day in downtown Denver. I'm not a huge fan of big cities and I saw Denver as just another big city, but I can add the Colorado capitol building to the list of capitol buildings visited on the trip. Sometime I'll have to count them up. This was the first requiring passage through a metal detector. Apparently Colorado considers itself a more likely target for attack than other states.