To St. George, UT, 07072011

Leaving Grand Junction on the I-70 - the scenery continued to change. The sky was dark with clouds and we did have rain for a while.

Included the elevation sign. Of course we were much higher in the mountains west of Denver.

The road ahead. We love those mountains.

The rapidly changing landscape required that we keep the camera ready to get the shots.

Black Dragon Canyon.Some of the castle like formations of Castle Valley.

Here we are on the edge of Goblin Valley, an amusing state park. Too bad we did not decide to take a tour here, the formations are very interesting as can be surmised by the name. Linda had visited this place when she lived in Utah many, many years ago.

Still the castle formations, but a change in soil hue.

A lone tower standing guard.

The castles give way to large boulders as we near the I-15.

We stopped for lunch in Richfield under sunny skies, but some scattered thunder heads. When we stepped out of Arby's into the bright sunlight we were met by large rain drops falling from the sky. Dan used this situation to his advantage and cleaned the van windshield.

Heading south in the I-15. Cowboys drive too fast. We were doing 76 MPH when we were passed by a diesel 4X4 dually pickup pulling a six-horse trailer at 85 MPH! Well, the speed limit here is 80 MPH.

We had reached St. George and were headed to Karen's house to spend some time with her and Linda's Mom.

The black lava flow remains are a stark contrast to the red earth here.

Finally, after a long day on the road, we arrived at Karen's just as she was returning from the market. This was the first time we had visited since Karen and Linda's Mom had moved to St. George. They are both very happy here, and the house is beautiful. Karen has been working tirelessly on the yard with Christine's expert help. Christine, our sister-in-law, is a landscape pro. We had a nice visit with all of Linda's family that live here: Mom; siblings Karen, JoAnn & her husband Brent, Gary & his wife Christine & their two sons Dylan & Tyler; and Linda's niece Loretta.

The weather was hot and unsually humid due to the storms passing through. We did have thunder storms on night, but it did cool off during the nights.

Linda's Mom is 88 years old and still looks great. She uses a walker, but does as much as she is able to. It was good for Linda to have some time here.

To Grand Junction, CO 07062011

The B&B in Limon, COThis was our room. Very comfortable & beautifuly decorated with hand made quilts.

After having a marvelous ranch style breakfast, which included home made multi-grain bread and jellies prepared by our hostess Beth, we walked to the corral to visit the resident horses. Beth told us that they like visitors and would push each other in order to get to us. She was right, they were very friendly.

She had "cakes" for us to offer the horses. These cakes are, of course, just for horses.

After that we loaded our stuff into the van and drove back toward the I-70.

Good by. We had a great night here, it will be one of the highlights of this trip.

The landscape was much the same as the last couple of days. We drove past Denver around 11:30 AM where this photo was taken. This building is right by the freeway - hard to miss. All of the good views were on the driver's side and no way to get good shots of the city while heading west.

Finally mountains were in view.

Here we were on the down side of the mountains west of Denver. The last time we were here the mountain sides were covered in snow and skiers. The skiers looked like ants on the slopes.

People will build houses just about anywhere! We were passing through Vail about this point.

We did miss the mountains while traveling east of the Rockies.

These were the short tunnels, the first of three through the mountain side. The Eisenhower tunnel is the longest, a little over 1.6 miles, the longest & highest bore of the interstate highway system.

This rest stop has a little museum and these building to show visitors the old west lifestyle.

The Colorado River was at the top of the banks and rather muddy.

The scenery was changing quickly as we progressed westward.

A good shot of the Colorado River. It did seem small after seeing the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers even though it was running high as can be seen here.

Nearing Grand Junction. We had crossed the Colorado several times since leaving Denver.

We arrived in Grand Junctin about 3 PM, checked into a nice hotel and found a good Tratoria right across the street where we had great Italian food. Our table was by the bar where a couple were having drinks with their dog in tow. We were surprized that the place would allow dogs inside, but he was quied and well behaved. This made us think of a joke we heard Tommy Smothers tell about a man who took his dog into a bar, and we chuckled. The dog owner thought that we were disturbed by the dog and asked us if that was so, so we just had to tell him the joke.

The WiFi signal in the hotel room was week and we were unable to upload our photos and get caught up with the blog. But we did have a good night's rest before the next big travel day.