Day 6

Dan here...

So I woke up early this morning in Boulder, CO and drove the Nissan into the dealership just outside of Denver. I was the first person on their agenda that morning, so the mechanics got to work immediately. The mechanic in Jackson, WY told me he thought it was a front left wheel bearing that needed to be replaced and the Denver mechanics said it would take about 3 hours to fix. They were going to look into the problem and do their own diagnosis anyway since they are the experts on this car. I kicked my feet back in the waiting room and expected to be there for at least 3 hours. I pulled out my computer and started to update the blog. After about 30 minutes, the head mechanic walked over to the couch where I was sitting and sat down beside me. He looked at me with a very sad look and told me bad news. The front left wheel bearing was fine... but the transmission was shot. They would need to do a complete rebuild of the transmission. My heart sank. I asked him how long that would take, and he told me..... wait for it.... wait for it... 2 days!!! He told me that we shouldn't drive it anymore until it was fixed or we'd likely be stranded somewhere. Knowing we were getting ready to drive through the Rocky Mountains and through the canyons of Utah... it was decided that they should fix the car. Luckily, the transmission problem fell under the car's warranty so there would be no cost to us, just time for the repair. He told me that they would have the car fixed by tomorrow night, which doesn't really set us back at all. It just changes our route to Moab, UT. We were planning on taking the southern route from Colorado Springs to Moab, but instead would have to follow the interstate west from Denver to Moab. No biggy. He hooked us up with a nice rental SUV and I am going to pick the car up tomorrow night or Thursday early morning, so that we can stay on schedule. Phew!!! Dodged a bullet. What a morning!

So, I hopped into the rental SUV and headed back to the hotel to pick Kari up and head to the Rocky Mountain National Forest. We decided to stop just before entering the Rockies in a town called Estes Park, which sits just outside the park. The town was very resort like and the day was beautiful. Not many clouds in the sky and the temperature at that altitude was about 80 degrees (much better than the 98 degrees in Denver). We had lunch at a little Mexican restaurant and then headed into the park.


The park was much different than I expected. I always had the movie Cliffhanger in my head when I thought of the Rocky Mountains. Wrong! The movie was actually suppose to take place in the Rocky Mountains but was actually filmed in the Swiss Alps to make for a better movie. Oh well... I still love the film. Guilty pleasure. Anyway... The park was rocky but was also very forest covered. We had a tip from someone at the hotel that morning to hike around Bear Lake shortly after entering the park. We decided to take the advice and headed that direction. The hike ended up being fairly short, but gave us a reason to get out of the car, smell the air, and take in the sights.



Next we headed further into the park, which also means gaining a lot of altitude. We were driving a road that is closed 4 months of the year. To call it treachorous would be an understatement. You have to keep your eyes on the road if you are driving. There were no guard rails and the drops were for a couple of thousand feet on each side. I kid you not... if your tires come off the road... that's it... you're going to roll down a VERY steep hill for about a 1000 ft. So Kari decided it was time for her to drive since she doesn't do well sitting shotgun on windy roads. It makes her nauseous. Honestly, I don't do well on windy roads when I am not in control of the wheel... so it made for an interesting ride. Plus, once we hit 10,000 ft. things get dicey anyway. It was stunning though and the road had plenty of places to pull over and hop out for viewing. Kari and I took advantage as much as we could.









After driving for hours, we decided to head back into Boulder for dinner and try to make it a relatively early evening for us to crash. We got back to the hotel and ventured out to Pearl St., which is kind of like the Santa Monica promenade. It is about 8 blocks of road that can't be driven, only walked. There are shops and restaurants everywhere. We decided to be cliche and have dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Nice dinner and a great bottle of New Zealand sauvignon blanc and it was ready to call a night. We needed to get up early in the morning to head 2 hrs south to Colorado Springs to spend the day. Off to bed. More to come.