Day 5 - 7/4/2005 -  Into the mountains...

Knowing that we would only be driving about 50-100 miles today, we took the opportunity to sleep in.  Some good sleep, a good breakfast, and back on the road.  I saw on TV that they had a bad lightning accident yesterday - 6 people were struck when a freak storm came in over a lake.  No one died, but they had to do CPR on them.  Everyone has said the lightning is BAD, so point taken.

We started heading west, and the distant mountains were soon looming in front of us.  We drove up through a gorge cut by the Big Thompson River.  Everything here is clean, clear, and crisp.  The air is thin, but it is easy to get a lung-full without smelling bus fumes.  The sky is a royal blue that looks so great against the white of the high snow fields.  We crept up the gorge and made it to Alpine Visitor Center, which is just past the highpoint of the road at 12,183 ft.  We jogged up some of the trails to the overlooks, but we started feeling the elevation.  Even with 50 mile training rides, we were still feeling it.  Nonetheless, we were the only ones jogging and we did not seem to be breathing much harder than the folks that were walking.

At the Visitor Center we grabbed a Colorado Chili Dog - which is a standard hot dog slathered with chili and beans - which you have to eat with a knife and fork.  As I sat there and "people watched", Hunter asked what I was doing.  I explained, and he did not understand the concept.  I explained that there was a major difference between RMNP and the humdrum of daily life.  Whether you are at work, school, shopping or whatever, most of the people there really would rather be somewhere else.  That is not true here.  Everybody there at the visitor center had chosen to be there at that moment in time.  Most, in fact, had traveled great distances to be in that spot at that time.  There is a certain inner peace when you are in the community of the truly content.

We will stay here for two nights and then head down to camp for the attempt on Mt. Elbert.  As I sit here in the campsite writing this, we are a stone's throw (literally) from a stream and 12,000+ ft snow-capped peaks tower above us.  Life is good!