Time to leave Colorado! We left around 8am for Cole's Family's Ranch outside of Steamboat.
We drove very slowly up some passes and then stopped in Winter Park. It is a super cute town! We ate breakfast and I replaced my sunglasses. More driving! We arrived at the ranch in Coalmont around 11:45am.
Cole's dad Jim (soooo nice) gave us the grand tour of the ranch. We drove very very very slowly in a pick up truck through a "road" that was often unseen to all of us. We tried to train Harper to run in front of the car like Sadie. He sort of caught on, but he kept running back toward the truck to check in with us. Eventually Tom just got out and walked ahead with him.
We stopped in a clearing of Aspen and shot the rifle thing. Tom shot it twice and I shot it once. It was way too much fun to shoot a dead tree with a real gun. We kept driving/walking. We spotted a resident herd of elk in the trees. They all started running and Tom held Harper back. It was very cool. We drove to an overlook and took some pictures and then slowly drove back to the house. We stopped and had bologna sandwiches (I love love love bologna) and some chips. Now 4pm we finally took leave. It was an amazing time and Jim was a fantastic host.
We drove into Steamboat and stopped for about 10 minutes at FM Light - the sort of kitchy cowboy shop. Then I took over the driving and we sped toward Wyoming. We saw LOTS of antelopes along the way. When it got dark Tom drove. Just an aside, but we were getting 54 miles per gallon at this point. We finally arrived at Sinks Canyon State Park and drove around until we found the campground. We paid our money and then went looking for a spot. They were hard to come by and the two that were left had very little space for our tent. We made due and put our tent on a piece of rocky grass right by the car. The rest of the space was filled with a picnic table and fire hole.
Tom said "Oh it won't rain." So we didn't put the fly on the tent. Lo and behold I awoke to what I dreamed were burning embers falling on me. It was really rain, and Tom quickly put the fly on the tent. We settled back to sleep again.
