The best laid plans

As I mentioned in the last post, our plan was to leave Idaho and head to The Grand Tetons and then on to Yellowstone. It was the 21st of September and as we were preparing to leave, we got word the Yellowstone had gotten 18" of snow overnight and the south gates were closed. Disappointed we changed our plans and headed south to Colorado. Sounds kind of strange, right, South to Colorado. I remember, "North to Alaska" but not the other way around. We quickly headed back south through Wyoming.

On our way, we made an afternoon stop at Fossil Butte National Monument. 

Amazingly, the great lakes covered this area of Wyoming, just 52 million years ago. The lakes are gone, but the fossils remain. The laminated limestone, mudstone and volcanic ash have yielded an amazing amount of fossil plants, fish birds, and much more. The surface is usually stripped off in sheets and more and more comes to light. There is an exceptional visitors center with fantastic displays. This is not the most accessible national park or monument we have been to, but it is worth the trip.

We stayed in Rock Springs, WY and spent an entire day driving the entire length of the Flaming Gorge Scenic Byway. The highway parallels the Colorado River and crosses over east to west creating a loop 80 miles long with dozens of stops, each beautiful and interesting.

 Yes, the wind was really blowing that hard.

The topography changed four or five times during the drive.

At the bottom of the byway where it goes east to west and then north again to Green River is another of the Colorado River dams, The Flaming Gorge Dam where everything is bigger than life.

Wyoming is truly a state where the road never ends.

And look at that, we got to the Philippines. 

We continued south and stayed at an RV Park in Loveland, CO. We spent a day downtown with a great breakfast  and wondering the streets to the Art museum.

The next and final stop of the day was the Colorado State Capitol. 

Gold was discovered near Denver and that opened the way for fortune seekers who settled in communities. The largest settlements were near mines. The area was originally part of Kansas, Nebraska, Utah and New Mexico. Statehood was granted in 1876. Ten years later, construction on the capitol began. The building was designed by Elijah E. Myers, the most famous architect of government buildings at the time. He also designed the Texas and Michigan state capitol buildings that have a lot of similarities. The building committee decided to use as much native materials as possible and it shows throughout the building. Beautiful marbles, granite, onyx and brass. There is an impressive grand staircase that stands in the center of the first floor rotunda leading to the second floor adorned with oak leaves and acorns cast in brass, the marble staircase consists of 57 steps and 176 brass balusters. There are eight exceptional art deco murals depicting Colorado's story of water.  Obviously the dome is the most impressive feature of the building. It is 272' tall. The dome was originally clad in cooper but Colorado miners presented a gift of 200 ounces of gold to gild the dome. Certainly one of the better capitols we have visited.

Our final stop in Colorado was Rocky Mountain National Park. The park occupies 400 square miles of peaks, lakes, snowfields, canyons, forests and meadows. The only problem was that it was so foggy we couldn't see the Rockies from right in front of them. We did, however, drive through many miles of beautiful roads and trails seeing elk with antlers over 5' tall.  We chickened out on the highest paved road in the United States. 

We went on a bus to Bear Lake at 9,475' and saw one of the prettiest lakes we have seen. Look at the reflection. It was a beautiful drive back to Loveland. 

Colorado turned out to be just what it is taunted to be.

Next time, heading further south.