Road Trip out West Day 5: Colorado

Rocky Mountains, here we come! 

After a good experience driving the back roads in Kansas, we continued as soon as the opportunity came along to diverge off the interstate and head across the small plain towns leading across Colorado. Finding a small cafe in Limon with some tasty sugary baked treats and on we headed for Denver. Slowing and continually climbing up across the now more rolling plains, the Rocky Mountains were upon up, quickly growing from the horizon, towering from left to right as far as one could see.

Letting her cool and re-coop

As we were coming into Denver city, we aimed for a carburetor shop as I needed to change out the jets which control the flow of petrol to the engine. Seeing as we were now at 1,500 meters (mile high city) elevation and going to be climbing up and over 3,400m (11,200ft) and to our permanent height of 3,000m (9600ft), the oxygen to fuel ratio need to be adjusted. Having preformed flawlessly across the entire drive, I was nervous coming into Denver and all my worst fears eventuated. Crawling stop-start traffic. I knew it wasn't going to be good, so we eventually exited but it was too late and the car stopped. So we sat on the side of the road for a while, feeling defeated, but knowing 30mins will allow it to cool and she will be back to life. That she was, so on we went to the carburetor shop. After getting the pieces I needed, thanks to the advice of the mechanic there, I pulled apart the carburetor in the car park and put in the new smaller jets. After the carb was adjusted the car felt strong and we were off up the open roads climbing up into the High Rockies.

The drive on I-70 through the mountains is rather spectacular. Climbing up slopes that just seem to keep going, with old mining town and operations scattering the sides of the hills, lowering cliffs and summits high above. We were going slowly and getting passed by tractor trailers, but we made it to the highest point at the Eisenhower Tunnel, popped through and headed downhill into Summit County, our new home. After driving 3592km (2232miles) over five days, we rounded Lake Dillon up to Breckenridge, to our big log cabin house surrounded by the mountains of our dreams.

She made it!