I learned something -- if you need to get the brakes fixed on your Jeep, and you happen to be in Steamboat in the summer, "We'll have it done on Thursday early afternoon" should be translated to "We'll be done sometime on Friday and it will take you at least 30 minutes to pick-up and pay for the work.. 'cuz we love you so much..."
After the break work, we hit the back roads...
This time of year is really early spring or so in the mountains. Most of the more conventionally amazing places we wanted to go -- Buffalo pass, Red something and others weren't open yet. We ended up going north out of Steamboat to Steamboat Lake... or some such unimpressive body of water (at least for two MN natives... boring... more impressive on the map).
From there things got interesting... armed with an excellent map (you know, the detailed ones they sell in big red books for $20.00 and have every possible trail, road or whatever...) we took off to see what was in the area of far northern Colorado and far southern Wyoming.
Wow -- no people --- huge ranches --- cows, sheep, horses, mule deer, jackrabits, antelope (going to make a jackalope -- I think... Wise Woman would bless the union) and really the most amazing scenery I've seen in a long time.
We were on "roads" and I use that term very lightly -- that made my childhood gravel driveway look like I-80. Most of the trip we were kind of guessing that we were on the right path (yea, path is more like it) and often saw signs that said ominous things like "end of county maintenence" and "it is illegal to drive on this road without chains or four-wheel drive" -- some of our most favorite roads were marked with just the forest road number and a set of symbols -- one of them looked like an army jeep...
I'm really not sure I can describe the high grazing land and the amazing not-quite-mountains-but-shaped-like-them land formations. The streams were clear and much of the way we were next to a river suitable for rafting and very fast. It was a beautiful sunny day, white puffy clouds and about 70 degrees...
We saw many places we could live when we get old-- or when we teach 100% on-line :) --- now all we need to do is to convince some really nice people to go with us... the catch is that one couple needs to want to raise horses, the other llamas... I really don't want the responsibility of taking care of livestock -- but I want to be able to visit them often. In exchange you can get your fill of crochety cats by cat-sitting while we go to warm places.... volunteers?
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1 comment:
wow. sounds absolutely awesome. esp those paths that aren't paved.
mr. t. and I are always looking for end-of-the-earth places to live eventually. like when the kids are grown up.
we've stayed in CO when we were meeting friends from California over Thanksgiving. Sounds like you've found a good place to take a vacation.
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