Today was one of those days where everything didn't go exactly as planned. We started out a little late, my head cold isn't helping, and Jody needed to catch up on some sleep. Then we had to stop at Walmart for a couple of things as there just happened to be one in Salida. By the time we were going, it was almost 9:30. As we headed down the first leg of our journey on US-285N, I realized that we had forgotten to get gas for the bike. Since we often don't see civilization for a while, we usually keep lots of gas in the bike. Luckily, there was a town coming up in about 20 miles. But, in the course of looking for gas station, I accidentally ended up on US-24E when I should have been on US-24W. Unfortunately it took about 15 miles to figure out the error. So we turned around and headed back the right way.
     So, at noon when we should have been pulling into the Rocky Mountain National Park Visitors Center, we were in Leadville looking for coffee . There had been several scenic views along the way and we did stop to take pictures. Colorado certainly has the largest and most mountains. Since the base elevation is already 7000 ft or more, these mountains easily rise beyond 14,000 ft. They look spectacular! And the scenic overlooks are just amazing. Some of these mountains are so high that there is still snow on top even in August.
     So after a couple of coffees in Leadville, we took a deep breath and tried to get the day back on track. Leadville, by the way, is an interesting town. It's an old mining town located at over 10,000 ft elevation and for some reason seems to attract bicyclists. It's something about stamina at high altitude but while we were there, we saw multiple bikes and people in spandex everywhere. Now that we were rejuvenated by coffee, we decided just to make the best of the time we had today. So we continued to stop when things looked interesting. We did have a few delays with road construction. And in the end we arrived at the Rocky Mountain National Park Visitors center at about 3:00 . Nevertheless, we did watch the obligatory 20 minute video about the park, and attempted to buy t-shirts, but they were out of inventory at this particular location.
     Rock Mountain National Park is really just a ride through park. There are a number of hiking trails, but they are all very long, all day affairs. For the casual tourist like us, it is really about the scenic overlooks, and the fact that the Trail Ridge Road reaches 12,183 ft at its highest point. We entered the park at its southern entrance, and planned to exit at the east entrance into the town of Estes Park. So we did our best to stop at the scenic overlooks to take pictures. Trail Ridge Road is all that it is cracked up to be. It's a really exciting rise beyond the treeline to where there is nothing but the dirt and the road. When you get up that high, it gets windy and cold, and you are riding along a narrow ribbon of road that has been cut into the mountainside. Without trees to obscure the view, there is nothing beyond the edge of the road but the drop into the valley below .
      Even with out stopping to take pictures, we reached the summit right at 5:00 just as the Alpine Visitors Center closed. Luckily, the Alpine Visitors Center Gift Shop is open until 6:00 and they had a large selection of t-shirts. Problem solved! After the Alpine Visitors center, we continued along the Trail Ridge Road and stopped a few more times to take pictures. There was even one time when we saw a bunch of cars stopped for no apparent reason, which we now know means only one thing: Wildlife! Sure enough, a family of Long-Horned Sheep were on the side of the road at about 12,000 ft. We were able to stop and get some pretty good close up pictures.
     By now it was getting past 6:00 and we were done looking at overlooks. Fortunately, the hotel is only a couple of miles from the park gate, so we gave up and made a beeline for the hotel. Unfortunately, there was no restaurant next door and we were too tired to get back on the bike for dinner, so it was another Domino's night. Whoever invented the Domino's phone app is a genius. Just a few clicks and the pizza is at your door without even having to talk to a human! An engineers dream!
     Tomorrow we will make sure we didn't miss anything important at Rocky Mountain National Park, otherwise we will be heading south over the Peak to Peak Highway with a final destination of Manitou Springs, home of the Pikes Peak Cog Railway. It should be great fun!

273,6 miles today
17,282.8 miles total

5.693 gallons today
407.620 gallons total