Almost to Nebraska

 Mr. Keith had a hankerin' for a short drive today, so we packed up the camera, the iPad and various other necessities and headed east towards the Nebraska border. The sign said it was 35 miles to Pine Bluffs, almost on the border of Wyoming and Nebraska. I'm always intrigued by water towers so when we saw this one about 2 miles off the I-80 freeway we decided to see what was in the town of Burns. Wow! Did we get a surprise!

 This little prairie town boasts 301 people. The whole town was pristine, so neat and clean, no shabby buildings or junk lying around anywhere. We toured the whole town just to see if there was a breach in the perfection. There wasn't! It was unreal! This beautiful park is right between both sides of Main Street, which is only as long as what you see in the photo. There was no sign of litter or disrepair.

 This classic church, a Lutheran, was one of several churches in town. We wondered where the cars were, since it was close to 11:00 on a Sunday morning. Maybe they met earlier. None of the churches had cars in front. Hmm!

 Proceeding on our journey, always on a back road if possible, we saw this stucco house made to look like Indian teepees.

 Finally, we saw the town of Pine Bluffs coming up. It's easy to see where the name came from. A long line of pine tree covered bluffs rise up from the prairie right there. We found not much of interest in town except this old gas station that seemed to be a museum for old gas pumps. No room for Pete to give service there!

 The outside of this restaurant is nothing special to look at, but here's where we had lunch. It's along the freeway at an old truck stop with nothing much else there. What drew us was the sign, "Indian Restaurant, American Restaurant". We were hoping it meant native American type food, but it was India Indian food. We thought that was kind of odd, way out on the prairie. There were several Indians there having lunch. We had plain ol' American food, though the other looked really good.

Another water tower — this one at a truck stop just up the road east from the KOA. 

Sapp Bros. boasts one of the best steak restaurants in the area, T-Joe's. We've eaten there once and will again. We recommend it to any of our campers who ask where they can get a good meal. We had a great, 3 hour, 80 mile trip today. Looking forward to more!

Winter Park & Granby, Colorado

 Today's drive took us across Denver (during rush hour!) and up to the 10,000 foot level in the Rockies. Winter Park and Granby were our destinations. We'd been to Winter Park, a premier skiing area, last winter, but no further west. There is still quite a bit of snow on the way up to the higher elevations.

 We found a wonderful restaurant in Granby. This monster moose was hanging right over our table! Mr. Keith bumped his head on the moose's nose when he tried to sit down. How would you like to have this fellow gazing at you during your lunch? (I mean the moose, not Mr. Keith!)

The restaurant, called Maverick's Grill, was superb. We had the best food ever! My choice was the fish (pollack) and chips, along with excellent coleslaw. Mr. Keith had the pollack on a bun with avacado on the side. It was perfecto! For dessert we had deep fried cheesecake bites, something I'd never heard of before. Yum!

 We were close enough to the south entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park, so we drove on up to see Lake Granby. It's there, really it is! It's a huge lake, completely frozen over. We didn't expect that, but maybe we should have, at 10,000 feet. We could see snowmobile tracks all over in the snow.

 There were several ice fishing huts out on the lake, even some ramshackle little buildings. You can see a tiny hut out there. We were told by our waiter at the restaurant that ice fishing is a major draw to the area in the winter.

 Winter Park and Granby, along with several other small towns, are nestled in a valley in between the Rocky Mountain Peaks. On all sides we were treated to this gorgeous view.

 Just for fun — in Granby we found a "Zero" Street. As one might expect, it was followed by 1st Street, 2nd Street, etc. Click to enlarge.

Also in Granby — The End!