A last Colorado morning, a last look upstairs…

loading, closing,

driving out [saw Mary Ann and dog Sprout – not shown]

to say goodbye to Dean and on down the road,

11:30 a.m., 30 October.

Post Office in Gardner, gas in Westcliffe,

L. drove over a bone dry Monarch and down the other side

to an eventual belated lunch on a random Forest Service Road before Gunnison, after which

the reservoir [not shown] was woefully down and descending from Cerro Summit we came up

on a massive backup due to roadwork. By Montrose I’d managed to catch up with the leading half dozen vehicles which we dutifully followed onto a fake detour that dead-ended between the runways of the Municipal Airport. By the time we’d wended our way back to the by now open ‘real’ detour we were all a few cars behind the motorhome I’d been ahead of

at Cerro Summit, ah swell. The Western Slope; it sucks but by five it we were in Fruita

for gas, located a room and a not entirely great place to let the long suffering dogs out

before El Tapatío [!] for some really bad chardonnay, a most inebriatory Dos Equis dark for me

with memorable camarónes verdes before stumbling across the road and inta’ La Quinta

which was also blessed with a better place to air the dogs, then in

to clean up and an early collapse…