900 km to the east of Salt Lake City almost to Denver

14.06. / Tuesday / Salt Lake City - Estes Park

At 08.40 we leave Salt Lake City heading east. The Interstate 80 is our road for the next 540 miles (870 kilometers) today. We had originally planned a different route and an overnight stay on the way back to Denver. We wanted to visit the Dinosaur National Monument, a world-famous fossil excavation site, especially for dinosaurs. But in winter, the Visitor Center, where the largest exhibition of the finds was located, collapsed under the snow (winter 2010/11). A makeshift Visitor Center offers only a fraction of the exhibition or you can take a shuttle bus to a hiking trail and spend hours in the mountains. Since the trip there would have taken about five hours (without any sightseeing), because a large part would have been a country road leading into the mountains, this is no longer an option and has been removed from the travel plan. Instead, we have decided to drive in a one-day car trip to the east of the Rocky Mountain National Park and spend the last three nights in Estes Park, about 90 miles north of Denver.

The weather is wonderful and we drive through the foothills of the mountains, then through wide valleys, always straight ahead. Highway 80 is a highway that stretches 4,700 kilometers from California to New Jersey. Compared to Germany, there is a relatively high amount of truck traffic here, but nowhere near as much. The Union-Pacific Railroad runs almost parallel to us, with trains consisting of 80-100 cars.

In Laramie we refuel and take a half-hour break after five and a half hours. It is extremely windy between the mountains, which stand beyond the wide plains here and still have a lot of snow on their peaks.

Soon we see sagebrush areas again and pronghorns enjoying them. Otherwise, the area appears desert-like. We reach the entrance to Estes Park in a southern direction via Interstate 25. At Loveland, we see an outlet, turn off and find that about 50% of the stores are vacant, which is really unusual for outlets. From Loveland, it is only about 30 miles to Estes Park, where we arrive around 7:00 pm. After searching for a hotel that is as comfortable as possible for the last three days and possibly even has a lake view, we find the Appenzell Inn (www.appenzellinn.com) which has a room with a fireplace, mountain view, kitchen and a large terrace.

The fireplace is a gas-powered unit, so we just need to set the firing time and the unit will burn on its own. In our apartment at "The Aspens", we had a real fireplace, which we logically did not touch due to a lack of knowledge. We quickly drive to Safeway and get something to eat and a can of beer. We are horizontal by 11:00 pm. It gets extremely cold at night, a window is stuck and won't close. Brrrr!