Day 9 - Fort Collins, Colorado

Another beautiful day in paradise! Spent the whole day pootling around in the mountains, up to the pass, down the other side, several times! Including one short cut from Rand to Gould, a 13-mile stretch of gravel road up and over Owl Mountain, which saved me a good few miles!

Here's a picture of the Colorado River (which ends up going through Utah and Arizona (and the Grand Canyon) and on to California and the Pacific) - I followed it for many miles, through this very wide valley near the source where the water spreads lazily over the meadows, up to the pass, then down through narrow canyons where it was in full spate, and through pine forests where the whitewater rafters were having fun in the sun.

Also drove down the beautiful Cache La Poudre river canyon - I'm running out of superlatives to describe this amazing landscape.

Up in the heights it was around 70degF - Fort Collins is the first time I have been down below 5,000 ft for about 4 days, and the temperature here was 93degF when I arrived at 5 pm! Unfortunately, when I got to my motel, their Wi-Fi was not working so I couldn't update this blog until now (Friday morning here) - at the local iHOP, where they serve an excellent breakfast. I am staying at the same place tonight also, so might have to pull the same trick tomorrow morning. ShouldagotaniPhone!