Going North....

If you were to check the route between Mesa Verde and the western entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park (in Grand Lake), you may just end up saying “you can't get there from here”....  because even though, as a crow flies it’s not that far...  well, we are not crows... and there is a VERY LARGE mountain range in the way, which you first have to go through one way, then go west for a bit (the wrong direction), in order to go around it, and then through it again, and then north again......

 Along the way, although technically we were always in the Rockies, the variety of landscapes, colors, rock formations... is amazing.  Going from desert, to meadows, to aspen groves, to above tree line, to breath taking views, to amazingly ugly little towns....  We only traveled a few hundred miles, and yet, the breath of this country is just amazing!

Since "you can't get there from here", we choose to meander there through the pretty town of Telluride.  We said good by to the last Mesa of Mesa Verde, and very quickly, the landscape turned much more alpine.

 We passed pretty little towns (old mining towns mostly), and even started to see some snow on the high slopes (most of the way, we are above 8000 feet, reaching almost 11,000 when we got to the Vail pass later in the day)

Telluride (which is mostly famous as a ski resort) is a really pretty town, born out of the mining of gold, copper and silver.

It's main street still shows the architecture of the typical mining town, and we enjoyed a nice breakfast at the old "New  Sheridan" hotel, and had the company of a lovely St Bernard.

 Oddly, Tellurium is NOT mined in Telluride.  Somehow the name was chosen because it is often alloyed with the previous metals that were mined here.  Which makes no sense at all to me.....

The top picture of the blog is from the main street, really, the only street there, but really charming.

Telluride has something very rare: a free gondola, which will take you to the top on the mountain (and to the mountain village) where you can get a great view of the box canyon it sits in, and of it's cute little airport (no big jets land there for sure.....).

 From Telluride, we had to head West, even though our goal was east, because we had to go around the Rockies first in order to reach I70. We thus went through Montrose, Delta, and Clinton, possibly the ugliest owns I've ever seen.  The foot hills of the Rockies from that side are just dry piles of sand.  It is fascinating to see (a lot of people live there.  why???).  

Just as I often say that pictures do not to justice to the beauty of the landscape, these do not do justice to it's bareness and ugliness.....

And Yet, there are some striking sites along the way, like the aptly named little town of "Ridgeview" and it's beautiful background.

Once we reached I70 and started heading East again, the landscape change dramatically again (for the better).  Parts of I 70 are just amazing feats of engineering, going at different levels through the red rocks of the mountains. 

The red mountains, and green and gold pastures make for a very pleasant drive.

Along the way, we passed just about every ski resort in Colorado:  Aspen, Snowmass, Vail, Copper Mountain, Breckenridge.....  This is a picture of Copper Mountain, right along the highway.









We got off the highway about 70 miles East of Denver and headed north for another 78 miles. 

Since we were already at 8000 feet, the roads were pretty easy though, no going up meandering mountain roads.  We reached the  Grandby - which has a large lake and large summer resort, which I had  never heard of..... and yet, it is so pretty!

And finally made it to our destination, the Gateway Inn, right at the entrance of Rocky Mountain national park. 

The hotel overlooks Grand Lake, has a beautiful terrace where  a good band was playing, and bar food was served.  A great way to end a long day!
















The sunset over Mount Baldy as we were eating......