Friday - Stay in Thornton / Saturday - drive Interstate 70

On Friday we drove from North Platte to Thornton, a suburb of Denver, where Stephanie and Paul Riess live when they are not in Yachats.  We saw them just before we left Yachats and they invited us to stop on our way back across the country, because they would be home in Thornton at that time.  We did stop and had a great visit, a wonderful dinner, and shared breakfast with them as we left the Denver area. It's our turn to offer dinner when we are both back in Yachats.

We also met a mobile RV repair guy in Golden, CO since we were having trouble with one of our RV circuits.  He said if we met him in the Safeway parking lot in Golden, he wouldn't have to charge us any mileage and he'd look at our problem on Saturday (something he tries not to do at this time of the year.) Do you see me smiling?  He was able to diagnose and fix our problem and tell us where there was a tire store down the street.  We were having a tire that was losing air on Thursday.  The tire store took the tire off and found a simple problem with the valve stem.  Didn't charge us anything, but Bob paid the "kid" $5 for finding the problem and blowing up the tire.

So you see me still smiling?  We had a wonderful drive west from Denver on Interstate 70, a route that we've never taken before.  The Rocky Mountain sky line was beautiful. The weather was picture-perfect.  I took lots of pictures from the co-pilot's seat. 

We stopped at a campground outside of Glenwood Springs.  Turns out it is on the Colorado River and our site is on the water.  We've gone from the banks of the Mississippi to the banks of the upper Colorado, a beautiful spot. (See pictures below).

Entering the Eisenhower Tunnel, the highest, longest tunnel
on the Interstate Highway System - over 10,000 feet in elevation.

Dillon Reservoir and Rocky Mt skyline west of Denver,
Denver's water supply

A Rocky Mountain Peak from I 70

A view of Glenwood Canyon as we drove along I70

Rapids on the Colorado River from our campsite
in the Glenwood Canyon Resort

Another view of the Colorado River from our camp site

That's the Phoenix Cruiser parked along the river.
We're looking down the hill from the "bath house" That's what they call it here.
It will be a long walk up in the morning for our showers