Wellington, Colorado

We had planned to travel from Gypsum to Loveland, today, with a back-up plan to stop at Golden if the mountain passes took it out of driver and vehicle.  Well, things went so well with both that we were able to travel to Wellington, Colorado.  As you can see from the profile, we did some major climbing. Leaving Gypsum we climbed from just over 6000 feet to 8500 in 40 miles, and then up to 10600 feet in the next 10 miles, dropped down to 9000 feet in the next 15 miles and then climbed to 11200 feet in 10 miles.  And then all the way down to 5000 feet.  Both driver and vehicle managed  admirably.  This was to get over two passes, Vail Pass and Loveland Pass.  Of course this is in one of the skiing areas of Colorado.

On Wednesday while waiting to have the RV worked on, one of the truck drivers told us he had just come through Vail Pass and it was snowing, they were expecting 8".  We saw the evidence this morning, the road was clear, but the snow was right next to the road.

One thing we did learn was to watch the truckers, if they come past you, pull in front of you and put their flashers on, it means either a very steep up hill or a very steep down hill, where they have to go slowly.  Read the truckers road signs.  Whoever did the signage for that area had a sense of humour.  The first sign will read, "Truckers: Steep grades and curves for the next 8 miles."  Next sign will read: "Truckers: you are not through it yet, still 4 miles of Steep grades and curves."  One sign just before an off ramp to a small town said, "Truckers: Your brakes fail? keep on I 70, do not take off ramp."  In other words we don't want you to wreck our town.  We even managed to pass one or two trucks, so our old steed ain't so bad.

So, as you can see, we were able to push on, and do just over 200 miles today.