Leaving Vernal we hit HWY 40.  It is a long straight road that the Halaburton oil trucks use.  Littered along side the road on both sides are bottles, beer and water like they just drive and toss it out of the windows.  There antelope on both side of the highway and it was just a lovely day to travel.   The speed limit seems to be whatever your comfortable driving in this state and everyone was over the speed limit.  On the straights though it was fine.  This is dinosaur country.  We took pictures often.  To Cache dey Poudre National Forest and Canyon.  It was weird.  So many of the tall trees are dying.  In places more dead then living.  Here is this beautiful forest with brown trees all over.  I know in the black hills they say they have gotten a beatle that is killing the trees.  I wonder if they are here also.

   This is another very very tall mountain where they seem to delight in letting cattle run loose.  Going around a hairpin it isn't unusual to have a cow in the road.   We went to through high mountain aspen groves and saw deer all over.  Again trout streams all over.  We drove through Cameron Pass which was at 10,600 ft.  Rick was checking out the altimeter on his watch like crazy all the way down.  Next to the road runs a stream that is a favorite of fisherman.  They were all over.  Small water falls, rapids, it was just beautiful.   The deeper in the canyon you get the higher the wall around you.  Winding road which one crazy woman tried to pass on the outside with a double yellow and almost gave us a heart attack.  She made it back to her side.  Why do people do that?
   We stopped in Steamboat Springs to use the park restroom.  Getting out of the car we were struck by this rotten egg type smell.  The park had a hot spring hole and it was steaming and smelling us a storm.  Going to the restroom I found it had been totally trashed and was unusable.  That seemed to be true most of the way through Colorado.  Now a woman likes a nice clean spot to stop.  Yellowstone was a dream come true.  I travel with disinfectant wipes and gloves, hand sanitizer and my own tissue.  But nothing could fix the filthy rest stops in Steamboat.  Either the door didn't work, they were trashed or people had smeared the unmentionable on the walls.  Why do people do that?  I finally stopped a McDonalds.  They always have clean restrooms.

   Steamboat springs would be a nice town if your under 30, have no body fat and like to do sports.  It was very busy.  We stopped and watch some children in their kayaking class.  That was fun.  After stretching for awhile we drove on.

    Past Walden we saw a huge bull moose crossing the road.  I jumped out of the car to get pictures.   It was just huge.  It stopped briefly in the middle of the road to look at me and then jumped the fence like it was nothing.  It was my first bull moose and I was thrilled.

   Finally after driving through the canyon for hours and hours we drove to Ft. Collins Colorado.   Another college town.  Very busy.  After all the hours on lonely long highways I am anxious in crowded towns.  We checked into a motel and went to Old Chicago for supper.  I think it was the first meal and we were hungry.   Tomorrow we start home.  The motel was OK.  A large motel with lots of empty rooms they insisted on giving us a room next to someone who had a grill and cooler set outside his room.  He was up the entire night talking outside the window with people who came and went.  Drug dealers?  Who knows but of all the rooms, why stick us there.  We weren't as lucky with our motel rooms as we were getting tables at restaurants.