A five hour push is all that was left to drive today.

As part of the drive, we crossed the Colorado border, and stopped at the roadside sign for it on I-70. I bet I’ve passed that sign half a dozen times in the last few years, but I’d never stopped and shot it before. It was cold, cold, cold, with the temperature sitting around 55, and pretty high winds exacerbated by the gust front of passing big rigs. But, it was the first time I’ve been cold in months.

Have I mentioned how I love cold weather? 🙂

I was on the lookout for my first peek at the Rockies as we drove. I’d thought I could see them in far western Kansas, but it was just past Limon CO before I saw my mountains. Without the snow atop them, I suppose they just blended in, making it hard for me to spot them. But when I saw them, my heart skipped a beat, and I got excited about getting up into the mountains at the end of the drive.

And as we pulled off I-70, and started up the mountains, we crossed through Berthoud Pass and stopped for a while. When I was there in June, the snow was big and deep, and had folks skiing and snowboarding on it. This time, it was warm. Maybe even hot. Hmmm, he says, that wasn’t what I was expecting in the mountains in fall.

We drove on into Fraser, finding the condo looking just about the way I left it in June. This was Becky’s first look at it, and I think she got pretty comfortable quickly. Not long after we got there, the family from Golden stopped in, started dinner, and we all sat down at the conclusion of planting our flag temporarily in the Rocky Mountains.