Day 26…Buena Vista to Kenosha Summit Campground
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After a very windy night in Buena Vista in Fran’s backyard, we had some breakfast and killed some time looking around town. We then backtracked a bit and turned east on Hwy 24/285.
The traffic was as dense as yesterday, but with a very narrow shoulder. It has been a long time since we had to deal with such a volume of vehicles on the road, and I can tell you that I prefer the lighter traffic of Utah and Nevada!
We climbed up over Trout Creek Pass and dropped into the South Park basin, a huge area (I mean probably hundreds of square miles) flat as can be and surrounded on all sides by 14,000′ peaks. It is beautiful, but I could not enjoy the scenery as much as I would like due to road and traffic conditions.
We stopped in the town of Fairplay, which was a tiny little burg last time I was there. Well, now they have motels, RV parks and a Pizza Hut. Things are booming there. They even have good cell phone reception.
Sarah was on the road this morning headed to Denver with our cats, Feisty and Buddha. Everything was going fine until she stopped for gas. She carefully got out of the car, making sure the sleeping cats did not escape, pumped her gas and got back in the car. No cats to be seen!
It sounds like she got a bit frantic, but she soon found them huddled together in the covered litter box! Feisty emerged after awhile, but apparently Buddha spent the entire day there.
Jerry and I camped at 10,000′ in a National Forest Service campground. Tomorrow we will meet my old friend Thomas Notides, who is staying about 20 miles down the road (he says he doesn’t camp anymore).
We knocked off 60 miles today. My average was 10.5 mph and I spent 5 hr, 40 minutes in the saddle.
-Rick