Mount Rushmore through to Colorado
23 October 2014 | Colorado
Ellen
Photo of us at 12,095 feet in elevation
It's been a fabulous couple of days. We did our tour of Mount Rushmore and I have to say I am impressed. If you ignore all the kitch that is built up around the town just before you get to Rushmore, it is an incredible feat. We paid the 11 dollars to park which also lets you into the museum and bookstore area. Also better viewing of the sculptures. We sat through a 14 minute film on the history of the sculpting - wow amazing how it was done. It was one man's dream but took about 500 men to complete the job over a course of 20 or so years. Most of it was achieved with dynamite.
From there we took the Ironman Highway which turned out to be one of the most exciting highways we have ever experienced. It was twisty and turny and there were a few bridges appropriately named the Pigtail Bridges which if you think of a pigs tail that's how the road went with these amazing wooden bridges. At points on the highway it split into two separate roads for each direction. When it did that the road was barely wide enough for the van! Beautiful stretch of road. Oh yah and did I mention the 12 foot high tunnels - lucky for us we are only 10 feet high. Once we got through that area we were in forest and grassland and there were wild buffalo! Lots of them.
Next day we made it to Denver Colorado. We arrived around noon and pulled into an RV park outside of town but on a bus route. So we hoped on the bus and went downtown. I brought my camera with me hoping that it was just a dead battery but when he put a new one in it acted the same so a new camera was purchased. I've had a camera since I was 15 years old so I wasn't about to go without now, especially as we are entering some of the most scenic places in the US.
We left Denver around 10am and decided to take some of the more scenic highways. One of the passes we went through was 12,095 feet in elevation!! I don't remember ever being that high up before. It was snowy up there and quite chilly - my thrift store winter coat is coming in handy. Driving up the road had lots of switchbacks and no guardrails - quite exciting. Reminded me of my treeplanting days except the road this time was paved.
From there we descended about 5000 feet to the town of Aspen which is like Banff only twice as big. Very pretty and funky town. We carried on and drove through to Grand Junction which is just this side of the boarder between Colorado and Utah. We arrived at about 8pm and decided to just 'Wallydock' - which means we are parked at Walmart for the night - hey don't knock it till you try it. Free place to stay the night.
I've added a new photo album in the gallery called Mount Rushmore to Colorado. We only had the GoPro camera when we were in Mount Rushmore.