Vacation 2015-Day One



We took over 700 pictures in just a few days on my phone, Gary's phone, our camera, and Ben's phone (don't be alarmed--I am not posting them all on the blog!).  But it does make it hard to know what to choose and what to write about.

 

The summary is that our 2015 Family Vacation (with Gary, Judy, Ben and Jena) and Giberson Family Reunion was great.  We had a fun time gathering with my family at the Sierra Bonita RV and Campground in New Mexico and we loved our side trips on the way there and the way home.

 

 

The details--Day One:

 

Although Gary places the blame squarely on me, I think both of us really enjoy traveling on roads we haven't been on before.  For me it is like lighting that piece of my internal world map each time I go somewhere I haven't been before (I even like taking new exits off freeways or going different ways to the same place.  I know.  It is a bit over the top.) As we planned our trip to north eastern New Mexico, we decided to travel east to Vernal and then travel state roads and scenic byways into Colorado and down to Rifle on Interstate 70.  We had decided to go that way because one of the bridges on my bucket list item (six famous bridges in the US) was in south eastern Colorado.  Then my brother posted that there was actually a Giberson Bay on Lake Dillon which firmed up our route.

 

It was a beautiful drive through eastern Utah and western Colorado and as always the Rockies are amazing!  Although we have been to Vail, Colorado, from Denver a couple of times, Gary isn't convinced that he has ever driven that whole road before.  I thought we had in our many trips between Texas and Utah but maybe not with him.

 

The interstate had a bike road beside it almost the entire length we traveled.  I might put riding on part of that trail as a bucket list item but I will have to get in shape before we tried something like that.  People were rafting along the river in lots of places as well.  It was a gorgeous day to be traveling in your motor home.

 



 

Here the west bound traffic is on the upper road
while east bound is on the ground.
Gary wants to travel that upper road sometime--maybe
when we come to bike ride

Turning south off I-70 at Frisco, Colorado and after a wrong turn, we found Giberson Bay.  Not much to look at and it was raining while we were there.  Ben and I jumped out for a couple of pictures for posterity.

 

Giberson is a fairly unusual last name
so it is fun to see it on a sign somewhere.

The Bay itself

We had just started traveling south again and I was just about falling asleep when Gary pulled off the road.  He said when he saw the sign, he knew I wouldn't want to miss this spot.  (He knows me so well!) Again Ben and I hopped out to enjoy the spot where the continent is divided.

The rain had just stopped and it was beautiful.  Ben took lots of pictures and I took this fun picture of him taking pictures.  I thought a lot on this trip how beautiful blue and green are together.  There are hundreds of types of greens and they seem to all worked together in nature and blue sky makes them pop.  Nice work---

 Finally in early evening we got to the area near the Royal Gorge Bridge.  We decided to turn in and look at it to determine how much time it would take to visit it in the morning.  When we got there, we were able to get discount tickets and still do the main things we wanted to do that evening which was perfect...

 We rode the miniature train............

 Checked out the gorge and rode the gondola across it to the other side....

Here comes our ride......

 Neither Jena or Ben love heights but they both were good sports and managed the gondola and the walk back on the bridge.

On the ride across...not her favorite thing

The Royal Gorge Bridge area had a major fire a year ago which burned down all of the buildings on the site and the amusement park activities.  However the bridge itself only was slightly damaged.  Here are some of the leftover trees which were burned but still manage to stand.

 Walking down to the bridge.....

This is what we came for (well, me anyway) to walk across this bridge.  When it was built in the early 20th century, it was the highest bridge in elevation in the world.  It now is still the highest in the US, I believe.

 A view looking over the edge to the river below.

 It is a wooden bridge and after 7:00 pm they allow cars and small trucks to drive across and back (not RVs).  That is when we were walking across and the bridge would shake.  Jena walked directly in the middle of the bridge except when the cars passed by. You can see the bridge through an opening between the wooden planks.

All of the states' flags are flown along the bridge and we got several pictures of the states which we loved.  Here is Ben by the AZ flag.

I think both Ben and Jena were pretty proud of themselves when they finished the walk.  It is pretty high in the air.

We then headed off to find a camping spot which proved to be more challenging than we thought.  We turned off the highway at an exit which had a state park sign but never found the state park and ended way north of where we wanted to be at Colorado Springs---oh well--another road traveled.

It was about 11 pm when we arrived at Lake Pueblo State Park (after another slightly long trip the wrong way) so we didn't have a good view of our surroundings until the morning.  We slept well after 15 hours of traveling and sightseeing.  It was a good day and a great start to our trip.

You can barely see the sail boat early Thursday morning on the lake.