Vacation - Day Three

I don't think we're in Indiana any more? Aren't these mountains amazing? Anyway, back to the story. We were pretty annoyed when we saw signs that the interstate was closed and all traffic was being diverted. We pulled into a hotel at the second to last exit and called it a night. The road was reopening at 5am.

We had a good night's sleep and again ate our free breakfast. While I went back to the room to shower and dress for the day, Jim took Sera to the pool. She loves swimming. In fact, she'll lie on the bed and stroke with her arms and legs. She tells us she's swimming in the water. We hit the road refreshed and ready to go. But first, I had to make sure to leave something behind. I had planned to quickly check my email while Jim loaded the car and pulled up. The computer was too slow, so I gave up. I grabbed Sera's hand, and we headed outside to wait for Jim. Sitting on that desk was Sera's Dora sippy filled with apple juice. I remembered about 20 minutes later, but it wasn't worth going back for. By this point we'd realized a few things. We were very happy that we'd been forced to stop the night before because there were no more good exits that followed. We ended up on a twisting and turning mountain highway. One that would have been terrifying in the dark, plus we would have missed the amazing sights.

The rest of these pictures were taken through the car window as we headed south through Denver. The exits off this highway were all for very small rustic, but expensive, towns. We pulled off in Grand Junction, the last major stop in Denver, for lunch. We make plenty of stops at McDonalds while travelling for $1 drinks and bathroom stops. We decided to drive into town and find something a little more interesting for lunch.

We ended up on this great little street in the downtown area. We were the only customers (it was 2 pm) in the Mexican restaurant. We shared a wonderful bowl of posole and then had pretty standard combination plates. The beans were delicious.

As we kept going south into Utah, all the trees on the mountains disappeared and it became very rocky. We pulled into Richfield, UT around dinner time. We were less than 2 hours away, but Jim's dad suggested we grab dinner at a diner there before heading the rest of the way.

Denver to Panguitch, UT - 543.68 miles