DAY 8a

Trail Ridge Road

The drive out of the Rockies gets its own post, because it was that cool.

With hind-sight, both Nicole and I agree that we should have stayed a few extra days in Estes. Yet, at the time we were planning on going all the way out to Zion National Park in Utah, along with working on two farms for about 4-5 days each in Arizona and New Mexico. Turns out that Zion ended up being just too many hours west, and well, you'll hear why the farm thing didn't work out soon enough.

So, Trail Ridge Road is the name for a stretch of U.S. Highway 34 and is the highest continuous paved highway in America. It reaches a maximum elevation of 12,183 ft, which is over two miles. As I sit in my living room at sea-level, I can't really process that there is a road chillin two miles above me, just a little to the left.

Every turn revealed beauty; I literally wanted to get out every 500 feet to take a picture. I also wanted to gawk at all the sights around me, but had to pay a certain amount of attention to the road, or else we would fall off a mountain. Not good.

gaining 'tude, reaching the clouds

sights to be seen by all

It was sort of bizarre to drive by construction workers on the road who were in winter coats and hats, while we were in our car with the AC on, presumably still sweating. When we finally got out at one pull off, the cold temperature was confirmed. The workers weren't faking. We threw some jackets on, took a quick-pic, and headed back into the car, onto Grand Junction in southwest Colorado.