After having breakfast with Randy, Denise, Woody and ourselves, we said goodbye to each other, but not without having received some nice goodies from Woody’s Wheel Works and a photoshoot. Woody decided to join us for a ride to Mount Evans, so we had the pleasure to be on the road with a man, who knows everything about wheels, on his two wheels ( a GS 100 PD). We enjoyed every minute of the ride to the top of 14264ft, when seeing Woody riding his bike, you couldn’t even see that he was suffering from a serious back surgery. We had a well-deserved pizza in Idaho Springs at Beaujo’s and decided to join Woody back to Denver for another night at his place. We spent the evening chatting with Woody and Jo. On Sunday we first had breakfast together and received a guided tour of Woody’s world. An impressive tour and we learned that not only wheels are Woody’s specialties but also lightweight solutions for paraplegic skiers. Next time when we are on the slopes we will remember him. The rest of the morning was spent on future travelling plans, family and life experiences. What an incredible life to live! We could have spent another week with Woody, but the call of the road was too loud to be ignored so with a big hug and some regret we said goodbye and hit the road via the beautiful Arapaho National Forest and the Berthoud pass (11315ft) towards the Rocky Mountains National Park where we spent a night on the campsite. Our sleep was disturbed by some sound and light play and a short rainfall. In the morning the sky was clear and we were ready to further discover the national park. We drove until Beaver Lake and were lucky with the wildlife, we’ve seen moose, elk and marmots. The scenery in the park was amazing, still lots of snow in the mountains which makes it even more beautiful and special. Via Estes Park we drove through Loveland and Fort Collins, followed the Poudre River in the Poudre Wilderness (magnificent canyon) and the Roosevelt National Forest. Around 3pm we were hit by a shower which luckily didn’t last luckily not too long (2hrs), but the temperature dropped to 2,5°C when crossing the Cameron Pass (10276ft). Despite the fact this wasn’t a high pass, the snow was still very present. It was an impressive drive. Not having enough of the passes we added another one, the Rabbits Ear Pass (9426ft), also full of snow. Because of the lack of decent campgrounds we decided to stop at KOA in Steamboat Spring which was a nice but overprized campground. Today we only drove on HW40, which gave us the opportunity to cover lots of distance, while enjoying a vast scenery of waves of green hills ending into desert in Utah. Because we needed a campspot we went to the Dinosaur National Monument, which was a very nice surprise. The visit of the Quarry Exhibit hall, a great wall of bones over 1500 fossils embedded in the rock. We could even touch some of the 149-million-year-old fossils.
The last 2 days we were also able to test some new gear we have bought, a new lightweight tarp and Global Zero Nomad 28 Solar panels and the battery pack Sherpa 50 which makes us now independent of the need of power supply. We can even charge our camera & laptop battery – amazing stuff!
