Another gorgeous sunny, blue sky day for our drive though to Denver for MACNA.

We drove through the mountains with vast areas of National Forest, tall pines & wildflowers, lush green cattle & horse ranches. Popping our ears all the way we rose and fell with the roads, crossed pretty crystal clear rivers and even the Rio Grande. We passed through small country towns, the odd Indian trading post, small ski field & hunting lodge.

While we were still in sunshine the mountains ahead were partially obscured by dark clouds which looked to be dumping rain as they climbed. We got a small amount of light rain but for the most part we enjoyed blue skies and fluffy white clouds. Much of the way we were at 8000 - 9000 feet, the highest elevation marker we saw on the road was 10,000 feet. It was alien to us to be so high yet be travelling along flat ground with green pasture either side leading to even higher mountains. Despite being summer it was cool, between 8C & 15C most of the day. Some of the mountains around us are over 14000 feet, there are small deposits of snow on a few.

It's local election time; there are signs here and there for various candidates for sheriff, attorney general, county assessor etc.

for a couple of days we've seen a lot of groups on motor bikes all heading in the same direction. According to the radio over the long weekend there's a big bike meet the other side of Cortez with entertainment including "extreme midget wrestling" whatever the hell that is! Lmao

We stopped beside a stream, it was very picturesque and the water was icy cold. We found a couple of salmon, not long dead. One was in the water wedged under a tree root, the other sitting out of the water on a raft of dead wood. BTW, Pete, ever the boy has to check them out and that's where I got the "not long dead" verdict :-)

We got into Denver, found our hotel and all went well, til we had to book in. Our room had already been given to Marvin and his associate who had the same booking number as us. Despite ringing the hotel from Aus when we got the double up on emails they didn't fix it and our reservation made last Nov went to Marvin. There was a lot of toing and froing with management but in the end we got a much better room on the 30th floor with great views of the mountains. It took a little longer to get checked in but we had a win in the end.

We raced over to the convention centre and just got signed in before they shut down for the day. Back to our awesome room for a shower and change before we headed out for dinner with about 25 other reefing nuts. Great food, a few drinks & we got to meet a few others who will be here for the weekend.

We had a couple of drinks at the lounge bar on the 27th floor then headed down to mingle with the MACNA crowd. was great that so many remembered us from last year. They tried to close the bar 3 times but people kept ordering drinks so they stayed open well past their usual midnight closing time. Finally we called it a night after 1am, weary from today's long drive but raring to go tomorrow.