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After a couple of photos of our motel, we hit the road - 380 mile to drive today, about 611km! This was to be a travelling day between Salt Lake City and Colorado Springs, too far to go in one hop so another day of 230 mile (370km) on Saturday.
We left town heading south-east and it wasn't long before we could see snow on the slopes in the distance. There were sprinklings of snow in the pine trees by the side of the road so we were not sure if road conditions would allow us to get where we were going. We soon discovered that the snow was disappearing the further we drove so all was good.
While driving through the town of Rooseveldt we saw people lining up on the side of the road so we pulled over and asked them what they were waiting for. They told us it was the Homecoming Parade. Now we have heard about Homecoming in American movies but had no idea what it was so we decided to pull over, have lunch and find out a bit more.
The Homecoming Parade occurs when the High School Football team plays their first home game of the season. This is a very big deal in town with Elememtary School students and families lining the streets to support the team. Soon enough the parade came up the street. Traffic was stopped in both directions and the parade was led by a police car to make sure everyone was doing the right thing. First came the American Flag while all the crowd stood and the school kids put their hands on their hearts to show respect. Floats (the back of trucks/ boats) followed with a marching band, whip cracker, Indian American Club and the various sport teams from the high school. As the groups moved down the street they threw lollies out to the waiting crowd. Girls were represented in soccer, volleyball, tennis and hockey with the highlight being the Junior Varsity Football boys, followed by the Seniors and then the Cheerleaders. This was a true representation of American culture and we were delighted to have been able to watch it. After the parade we joined the line of traffic behind the floats to get out of town.
Our next stop was at Dinosaur National Monument just outside Vernal, Colorado. Lyn and Val, our hosts for dinner in Salt Lake City, had lived in Vernal for 10 years and told us that a visit to the dinosaur monument was worth a visit - how right they were!
Dinosaur National Monument includes one of Earth's richest known dinosaur fossil beds. The remains are from the Jurassic period, 150 million years ago. During a drought, many dinosaurs died near a river's edge. When it rained again, floodwaters carried the bones of over 500 dinosaurs to the area. 10 different dinosaurs species are represented here including Diplodocus, Stegasaurus, Allosaurus, Camarasaurus and Apatosaurus. The remains were discovered in the quarry in 1009. Now, a viewing area has been built over the area and the exposed bones are available for all to see. Some exhibits allowed visitors to touch the bones as well. Thanks Val and Lyn for telling us about this site, we loved it!
As we hadn't even gone half of our distance for the day we hit the road again. We finally arrived in Glenwood Springs, our overnight stop at about 5:30 pm only to be confronted by roadworks that stopped us from taking the required exit! The main bridge in the town had collapsed and a new one was being built. We had to detour 5km down the road, turn around and then pass the town by another 5 km before we could navigate to our hotel. Chinese dinner next to our motel was delicious.
As Saturday was a relatively short travel day we had a sleep in and spent half an hour chatting to a young couple over breakfast. Getting out of town was way easier than getting in but the weather was not the greatest - rain, so glad we were in a car!
We decided to visit Aspen on our way to Colorado Springs. Aspen is a beautiful ski resort town, another home of the rich and famous as was evidenced by the 40 or so Lear Jets parked at the airport on the way into town. We drove passed the hotel we had stayed at in 2009 and headed in to town for a look around. The weather was a bit miserable but we managed to take a few photos and find a warm and dry spot for coffee and a scone. Greg had a chat with a local who actually knew quite a bit about Rugby Union and he had even met David Campese many years ago; we even found rugby field in town.
Back in the car we headed to Buena Vista and had a lovely lunch at Jan's Cafe before heading off in the rain again.
The weather today would have been absolutely miserable if you were out in it - wet and cold, thank goodness we were not on the bike. At one point the temperature outside the car showed 3 degrees Celsius! It did get up to 16 degrees at one stage but it was still raining. Even though the weather was horrible, the scenery was spectacular. We drove through the Rocky Mountains for most of the day getting up as high as 12,095 feet at Independence Pass. We had views of mountains, lakes, pine trees and more trees putting on their Fall colours for us. Apart from the rain, the day was spectacular.
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Christopher Wou betide anyone who disrespects the Stars & Stripes or the US National anthem. We have total firebans & 30+c