Saturday, 9/16/17

We're finally in Silverthorne, Home to Alex & Alice!

On Friday we were on the road by 6:50 AM, driving 643 miles along  I-70 across the farmlands, of Missouri and Kansas that are dotted with grain elevators, oil wells, corn, wheat, soybean, and sorghum fields.   We really found the prairies especially beautiful.  The prairies really are like the ocean, with the table flat grasslands extending as far as the eye can see.  It became easy to I understood why they called covered wagons “prairie schooners”. as the eye can see.

We arrived at our campground in Lake Scott State Park around 7:30 PM, with just enough light to find our site and get settled.  Arriving at this campground was very reminiscent of driving up to the north rim of the Grand Canyon.  You’re driving along a very flat plateau and suddenly you come upon this canyon that carved out below the plateau.  The campground was like a green oasis in the middle of golden brown praire.  Lake Scott is man made and provides many campsites right along the shore.  At 9 PM the temperature was still in the 90’s; fortunately there was a strong breeze that kept it bearable, but the breeze was so strong that we ate dinner inside the van.

On Saturday we woke up around 7 PM today, the temperature dropped 30 degrees and we were actually cold enough to use our sleeping bags. We ate breakfast at our campsite, packed and showered, so we weren’t on the road until 9 AM.  We had a 38 mile ride to get back onto I-70, and we stopped frequently to take pictures.  I was overwhelmed by beauty of the prairie.  Fortunately today’s journey to Silverthorne was short compared to yesterday, only 343 miles. When we crossed the state line, we stopped by the “Welcome to Colorful Colorado” sign for a quick selfie which we texted to Alex to update him on our progress.  (He and Alice had sent us that same picture last May when they returned.)  He wrote back and advised us to drive over Loveland Pass as opposed to go through the Eisenhower tunnel, and we were glad we did.  The Aspen’s are turning right now and their colors are brilliant. 

We arrived at Alex’s place around 4 pm.  We had not seen him since Nick & Chetty's wedding in June.  So we were very excited to finally be with him in Colorado.  We've talked about making this trip ever since we bought our first van, three years ago.  

Alice was working a wedding in Breckenridge so the three of us got reacquainted before going out for Mexican food in nearby Frisco.  After dinner Alex guided us to our campground on Dillon Lake and we chatted for another hour before he headed back to his house in Silverthorne.