DAY 38: Manitou Springs, CO: Our Last Day in Colorado....

Wednesday, July 8: Manitou Springs, CO

First:  Happy Birthday, Joy!!  I miss you and love you very much!

This is going to be a short Blog today cause my butt is sore and I'm tarrred, as we say in Texas.  We rode longer than we've ever rode the motorcycle in one day; 435 miles, however, they were 435 beautiful miles.  

I think the thing I noticed the most about today was the sky.  It was such a fabulous blue and every picture I took, the sky is what you noticed first.  But the ride was equally as beautiful.  We rode through snowy mountains, hot canyons, waterfalls, visited Aspen for the first time (you know they want $50 to take the ski lift up the mountain???  Are they crazy???) and had some super twisty roads to zip the motorcycle through.  Poor Chuck; I was stopping at each corner taking pictures of everything and he would just patiently wait......of course, it didn't hurt that he brought a snack bag with him so the stops gave him an opportunity to eat.....

It took a couple hours to get from Manitou Springs to Independence Pass, which is the twisty, curvy, mountain road that dumps into Aspen from the south.  You know its going to be a GREAT road when the sign says "Absolutely nothing over 32' allowed on this road".  Those are the signs you look for on a motorcycle!!!  It was spectacular.  My words cannot describe it adequately.   Just trust me; if you ever make it to Aspen, take a drive on the south road.  Most people don't know about it.  Chuck suggested that instead of going back the way we came, we ought to go a little further north to I-70 and take it into Denver and then south to Colorado Springs.  That sounded like a longer way back to me, so we checked the 4" x 4" GPS (I can hardly see it with my glasses on!) on the motorcycle.  This is where we had a difference of opinion.  He thought it looked like it was about the same amount of time to get back (mostly hwy), although a longer distance.  I thought it looked WAY longer even with being mostly hwy.  We did it his way.  Turns out  I was right.....we added about an hour coming back even with going mostly 70-80 mph.  Highway 70 was a gorgeous drive, though, and definitely worth the extra time.  It was the heading into downtown Denver in early evening that didn't thrill me.   At least my microphone on my helmet isn't falling off anymore.  We ended up placing a sugar packet under the connection and its done fine ever since.   Hey Deb & Brady, kinda reminds me of the paperclip that's keeping your motorhome running......

Anyway, that was our day.  We started our journey today at about 10:30 am and arrived back to the RV at 8:15 pm.  Very long day for Murphy too.  He had to "hold" his water all day in the RV and did a fabulous job of that.  He's still carrying his John McCain doll everywhere he goes, but I haven't seen any "action" between the two, so this is very good.  

This was our last day in Manitou Springs.  Tomorrow we raise the jacks, pull in the slides, retract the awning and tell our new RV friends goodbye.   Sad to be leaving this beautiful place, but excited to see our family and friends that we've missed at home.  We should be arriving home on Saturday evening after a stop in Dallas to see Mom and Dad. 

We'll see where we land tomorrow night.....

Hey Sara and Lance, are you guys going to be free on Friday evening for dinner?  We'll probably be staying in Wichita Falls.......