After the big trip yesterday, everyone was pretty exhausted and went to bed early. Most of the group met for breakfast at 8am again, but not me. I'm not a big breakfast person. I got all packed up and loaded the car and met everyone at the train station for the 10am departure of the steam train. We were hoping they would double-head two engines being that it was a Saturday with the possibility of more passengers on a weekend, but no luck this time. Just one engine and the same consist we had yesterday. It was cold again this morning so the steam looked great as they pulled out of town.
We all said our goodbyes and I was ready to head to Denver, which is a little over 300 miles from Chama. I was planning on going the fastest and most direct route, but I was convinced by one of the group members to go a different way that was more scenic and would take about the same time. I head towards Antonito, then up to Alamosa, where if you remember I stayed a few days ago on the way to Durango. I stopped for lunch, filled up the car and cleaned the windshield. I took Highway 17 north out of Alamosa, which is the same road I came in on from Cripple Creek last Sunday.
About 20 miles north of Alamaosa I came upon a UFO viewing platform in the middle of the desert. I guess they have quite a lot of activity in this area because it was a pretty elaborate set-up, including a gift shop that wasn't open and a two level viewing platform. There wasn't another person in sight, but I stopped and paid the $2 requested entry fee and started to walk around a bit. The sign on the building said "you are welcome to leave a bit of your energy here, but please don't take other people's items". I had nothing to leave that would contain any of my "energy", unless you consider a used gum wrapper as some kind of cosmic magnet. There were cartoonish alien characters in different places and in various positions, but what I found interesting was all the items other people had left that contained their "energy". Lots of hubcaps, dolls, stocking caps, felt-tip pens, hotel door keys, old satellite dishes, used lottery tickets, etc. You get the idea...just about anything you could think of was there. It was all a little weird for me, but still cool at the same time.
I continued northbound on Highway 17, which eventually turned into Highway 285. As I headed into the mountains I started seeing low clouds hovering right along the tops of them. I had heard earlier that Denver had received some snow yesterday, and there was snow falling in Cheyenne just this morning. As I started climbing, the outside temperature started dropping, which wasn't unexpected. As I approached the pass going over the mountains, I got into those low clouds and it got quite dark, very foggy, it started to drizzle, and the temperature outside was showing as 25 degrees. The pine trees along both sides of the road had a good accumulation of ice on them already, and now my windshield was getting ice on it as well. The defroster went on high heat and the windshield wipers were scraping off the drizzle and ice, and I slowed way down. This Houston boy is not used to driving in this kind of stuff, and yes, I did get a little nervous, especially when I started to see sand trucks going by. All the locals were driving their normal speeds and none of this seemed to bother them at all. They probably thought I was some old lady being overly cautious as slow as I was going. I'm sure they knew I was from Texas, or somewhere else that didn't have to deal with cold, fog and ice on mountain roads.
As I came down the other side the outside temperature started to rise and got to exactly 32 degrees, which is where it stayed all the way into, and all over Denver, and the drizzle stayed as well. It was just a miserable night and I was glad to get to my friend's house and get out of it. I went out to the car a little later and there was already a thick sheet of ice forming on all the cars in the neighborhood. We have no plans for tomorrow, and depending on the weather, we might just relax here at the house. I've been running crazy all week, as you are well aware, so a nice quiet day wouldn't be too bad.
I fly home on Monday afternoon, so I will wrap up this latest adventure at this point. For the moment, I have no future travel plans in the works, but that could change. I do know that I will try and go to Alaska next year for a train convention, but that's not until next September. We are going to try and finish up all the work needed on the new house, so that's where my priorities will be through the winter months. If I end up doing a trip, I'll let you know.
Thanks again to everyone that has been reading the blog, and I appreciate all your comments. I'm really enjoying sharing all of this with you.
Until next time, take care, and keep in touch.
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