Wednesday night

We got up this morning, had breakfast, found a car wash and took the top off...finally! We took of for Estes Park and of course it rained on us for 15 minutes or so. We arrived there, gassed up, toweled off the car and headed for Trail Ridge. Just outside of town we saw a young Elk right by the road side eating, cool sight. As we arrived at the Park toll booth we discovered Trail Ridge was under construction. We went any way to see how good or bad it would be. About half way up we hit the construction, drilled black top...no problem. About 3/4 the way up the sign said "pavement ends". We stopped and talked to a car that was coming down and he said it was not too bad. (of course he was driving a SUV) We headed on up, not too bad, had a pilot car guide a group of cars, the road was multi level where they were scraping up the black top. We made it to the top, 11,700 ft high. Took a photo by the snow bank and headed down the other side. There we found the construction much worse, the road was just dirt, gravel and mud. 20 MPH, dodging rocks, puddles when I could, it was a little nerve racking. We made it, the car was mud all over, inside too and we were mud splattered. On the way down we saw a herd of elk grazing, a mama moose and her calf right by the road side. I was not going to stop for a photo and spook her so no picture.
We stopped in Granby for lunch, washed the car again and continued on. A long drive thru a pretty but desolate area. Not much traffic, very few homes. We finally hit I70 at Wolcott, 120 miles east of Grand Junction. We hit Grand Junction about 6 PM, found a hotel and a place to eat.
A fun day, got some sun, a lot on out legs. We both match the red seats in the car now.