"Fall" in love with Colorado

It was a year ago this weekend that we made the trek from Northern VA to Denver.  Via the marvelous states of Tennessee, Missouri and Kansas.  Today we took advantage of the short fall season, and when I finished my Meals on Wheels routes, we hit the road to tour the mountains in our backyard.

We made a day of it.

G researched the trees that change color in this area, and mostly they are the aspens.  They peak between the middle of September and the middle of October, turning a bright yellow then orange.  Since the weather was perfect today, we took advantage of it and drove a few hours south west of Denver.

We are very classy and stopped at a gas station general store for lunch.  I am not too proud to say that it was really good!  G had a hot dog, I had a patty melt, and we split a basket of fries while people tromped in and out, paying for their gas.

Then we started up up up into the mountains and things got interesting.  Like, um, inches of snow on the ground.  In September!  We were over 10,000 feet but still!

Look!  The Continental Divide!  In case anyone needs a reminder of what this is (cough me cough) it does not, in fact, divide the mainland U.S. down the middle.  It is the point at which bodies of water to the west flow into the Pacific, and bodies of water to the East flow into the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico.  

It was cold.  After my repeated heat strokes in Asia, I'll take it!  And I won't complain.

We then proceeded to drive back to Denver via Colorado Springs, where I saw G's nerd store, his main hangout.  I even met a couple of his peeps.  I can now verify that it does exist and he's not having an affair a couple of nights each week.

We shuffled in around 10:00 tonight and I finished up dessert for tomorrow's Supper Club.  Am now switching into the ol' pajamas for some quality time on the couch.  Am thankful we got to experience fall today (with a dash of winter).

Hope you're enjoying it too!