Eight hours of eye candy. We decided to make a 260 loop that began and ended in Buena Vista.
Day 10

Buena Vista, Colorado to Buena Vista, Colorado

260 miles

2366 Total Miles

Eight hours of eye candy. Have we mentioned yet that the vistas are beyond belief? We know this isn't news to anyone but we have to mention it...repeatedly.

We decided to make a 260 loop that began and ended in Buena Vista.

We climbed out of Buena Vista on Highway 285 which took us through the San Isabel National Forest.

The view to the West as we headed East

We then reached Wilkerson Pass, elevation 9600 feet. We stopped there to visit a scenic spot with a view of over 20 peaks, all over 13,000 feet elevation. We met Roger, who grew up near Memphis and has parents in Jackson, TN. He lives out here now and came over to visit after we stopped. Nice guy.

Roger

While descending from Wilkerson Pass, we stopped at the Florissant Fossil Beds, which contains the fossil remains of a 35 million year old lake. Also of interest were huge fossil stumps from ancient sequoias. Most interesting at this stop was Harr Burman, a Wisconsin retiree who spends the summer seasons working at the fossil beds for the National Park Service. Burman has become an expert on the fossil beds and gives talks to touring groups several times a day. Retirees staff positions like this for the National Park Service throughout the nation. We've met a couple of others who do this and it seems quite fulfilling.

Harr of the US Park Service

Bo and one of the petrified stumps of ancient sequoias
After touring the fossil beds, we drove through some great mountain roads and arrived in Cripple Creek, Colorado, for lunch. To our surprise, Cripple Creek is full of small casinos. We didn't see many motels and wondered where the gamblers came from. After lunch, we were putting our gear on in the parking lot when the waiter came out and suggested that we take the road to Deckers, which would take us through woods that were severely damaged by last year's major forest fire. Bill's wife, Laurel, was here last year during the fire working with the Red Cross. She spent several days in Cripple Creek.

Main Street Cripple Creek
We drove through the area and the damage was impressive. Yet further down the road was a stretch of forest that was recovering well from a previous fire.

This house in burned forest seems to illustrate the dilemmas surrounding land usage in the West
The last part of the day took us over Kensoha Pass, 10,000 feet elevation. Upon decending from the pass we came upon the best view of the trip yet, a high plains area that stretched for miles and miles. We hope our photos give some idea of what we saw.

View at the top of Kenosha Pass

This is the real South Park!

Tomorrow it's on to Westminister, Colorado, which lies between Bounder and Denver.