Day 7 - July 8, 2020

I think we were starved for some beautiful scenery. Today, we feasted!

After leaving beautiful Cheyenne, we stopped in Fort Collins for a walk around downtown and visited some breweries. We went to Funkwerks and had a flight. I didn't like the last two beers and the server discounted our flights by $7! We told her she didn't have to do that, but she insisted - so nice! Ian was especially excited to visit New Belgium brewery, because they have a sister location in Asheville - one of his favorite spots. He got his favorite beer in a bottle - they ran out of it on draft. Must be pretty good?

Next, we headed to Denver for some vegan food. We ordered Bahn Mi tacos made with Impossible Burger and some broccoli wings. It was some of our favorite vegan food so far! We also split a horchata donut from a local bakery. It was good, but a little strange - it had rice pudding in the center. Next stop: the Rockies!

Driving through the Rockies was amazing! There was still snow on the mountains! I wish I could have looked at the scenery more, but I was driving, but Ian enjoyed it. We were essentially cradled by mountains through most of the trip. We had a pit stop in Vail, CO - a town I always wanted to visit. The main village was cute, but touristy - a little too fancy for my taste. But there were some interesting sites that are included in the pictures. We hit some really bad traffic for the first time on this trip - it was bumper to bumper for 40 minutes due to road construction.

But gratefully, we are in Grand Junction, CO now. The city is surrounded by mesas. Some areas of town are really nice and others...not as much. We are staying at the Grand Vista Hotel, which is by far the least nice hotel we've stayed at on this trip, even though it has 3.5 stars and good ratings. I suppose you get what you pay for - it's also the cheapest hotel we've stayed at so far. Some of the people staying here were not wearing masks, even though the signs posted everywhere said to wear them. We got Nepalese take out that was pretty tasty and ate it in the room. But it's not a terrible room - most importantly, each us have our own bed!

Overall, people were good about wearing masks in Colorado - probably more so than any other state we visited. We think Grand Junction may be the exception to the rule.

Also, one of the reasons we may be enjoying Colorado and Wyoming so much is the weather. The temperature was in the 70s and 80s - which made the convertible quite enjoyable. It's nice not take have to take 3 showers a day like I did in Tennessee!

Given the bad outlook in Arizona for COVID, especially in the area we wanted to visit, we officially decided to postpone our visit to the Petrified Forest to another time we visit my mom in Tucson. So tomorrow, we off to Bryce Canyon City!