Salt Lake to Denver

In Riverton, we are able to spend some real quality time with Ginger's sister Fran, and husband Bob.
They have created a photobook on www.MyPublisher.com  of their parents. We see photos of Dad that we never saw before, from when he served in the Army throughout Europe in WWII.

It's good to have some home cooked meals. Fran is a great cook!

The weather had been perfect; low 70's. Then an Alaska cold front moved in; heavy rain, and temps dropping 40 degrees overnight. We wake to this seen, taken from outside their house:

                                             Here's Bob's jeep he is working on:

If you are an "outdoorsy" type , Utah is the state for you. ATVing, snowmachining, hiking, fishing, camping, hunting, deserts, mountains...you name it.

We play cards till 11:00 pm, and they take us to the Amtrak station for our 3:30 am departer. The train is not only on-time, its a little early. We board. Its nearly full, mostly of sleeping travelers.

This trip will take us through: Provo, UT; Helper, UT; Green River, UT; Grand Junction, CO; Glenwood Springs (Aspen),CO; Granby (Rocky Mountain National Park), CO; Fraser-Winter-Park, CO, before arriving in Denver at 7:10 pm.
We traveled most of the time along the Colorado River, and I-70. Saw several trout fisherman, including rafting fishing trips (ate my heart out).

                                                    High mesa in the high desert

           These 4 and 7 year old brothers entertained each other for the entire 16 hour trip.

                                  Lots of beautiful ranches. Cow, horses, lamas, antelopes

                                    Cable car lifts at a ski resort in Glenwood Springs, CO

Historic Hotel Colorado , This hotel with its hot springs, 40 miles from Aspen is where President Teddy resided while on bear hunting trips in the area.                                            
  See:  Glenwood Springs

Our train rounds  bend on the Colorado River

                                                   Truck exiting a tunnel on I-70

Entrance of tunnel. Below it is a cement bike and walking path along the bank of the Colorado River

Our train passed thru over 40 tunnels on this leg of the trip.

                                                         Incredible colors of the minerals

                                                               Small ranch and corral

                   Snow on the higher elavations, as we prepare to make the descent into Denver

Looking down towards Denver. It is to the right of this photo. The tall white objects are huge wind turbines. We weaved our way through the foothills, grazing land. It became too dark to take anymore photos. We arrived on-time at 7:10 pm. The Best Western shuttle picked us up and took us to our room.
Our last stop before boarding the plane at 10:29 am on Monday, 10/10/11, and headed home.