Tuesday
Continued on towards Longmont. Stopped at a great Safeway in Trinidad, CO. Finally; a good selection of healthy salads. New Mexico grocery stores seem to be mostly limited to Cole slaw & potato salad. I guess that’s what their market wants. Spent the night at Lathrop State Park near Walsenburg, CO. A nice park centered around two lakes. It costs $24/night to camp at a CO State Park. Except for the $25/night cost at the Balloon Fest, this is the most we’ve paid to camp on this trip. We’re spoiled by the NM Annual Camping Pass. Plus we’re cheap. For the trip so far, our average cost per night camping is just over $10.
Wednesday/Thursday
Drove to John & Linda Leaches property near Monument, CO. They have a beautiful, heavily wooded homesite. In the near future they plan on building a home. Right now they simply enjoy the beauty of the property from their Lazy Daze. On the way here, we got gas in Pueblo, CO. $1.899/gallon. A few miles further, in Colorado Springs, the price was $1.69!!. The lowest gas price we have seen in quite some time. What a relief. I put 37 gallons of gas in the tank for *only* $71. Not too long ago that would have been closer to $140. A big help especially since we are on the home bound leg of our trip. Will be burning lots of gas real soon.
On Thursday, a cold front moved through. The high for the day was 29*. The low was 21*. There was a light snow. Didn’t stick to the warmer ground, but the pine trees were beautiful.
We had the most wonderful time visiting with John & Linda. On Thursday, we made a pot of gumbo, Linda made a salad & had some wonderful bread. We went to their RV for dinner. Talked about future travel plans. Perhaps we’ll meet up with them near Jackson Hole, WY next summer. Hope so.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Left about 9:30 heading to the Cherry Creek State Park in Auroro, CO, right near Denver. Took SR 83 rather than I-25. A pretty drive through mostly ranchland. The closer we got to Denver, the more developed it became. Cherry Creek is a nice campground if you want to visit the Denver area. Very large, big lake, lots of nice multi-use trails.
