Day 39 - Leadville

Today I travelled further north-east through the Rockies to Leadville which is where I am staying this evening. It is my last night in a motel – yay! Not that any of them have been bad at all, but they are all pretty similar so therefore a bit monotonous! Leadville is 10,190 feet up in the mountains and there is snow on the peaks all around so I expect that it won’t be long until this town gets its first snowfalls of the season. It is quite a cute little old mining town with lots of Victorian buildings, although there isn’t much to do here to be honest. I have taken absolutely no photos today because the weather has not been great – lots of thunderstorms with loads of lightning to match. It is only 3.30pm here and I have already checked into my motel because of the weather. I was going to go on some walks around here in the mountains which I thought would be quite cool but I don’t fancy getting drenched so I have holed myself up in my room to watch crap TV and read for the remainder of the day I think – not particularly interesting, but this is the first day where I have had crap weather so not bad in 5 1/2 weeks I don’t think! It’s not particularly cold though thank goodness – although obviously colder than I’ve been used to as I am at 10,000 feet. The drive today, apart from the weather was fairly scenic through the mountains and I travelled through some high passes again – up to over 11,000 feet in places. I also passed by the highest peaks in Colorado (14,500 feet) but to be honest, they looked pretty much like all the others! Tomorrow I travel the short hop across to Denver (hopefully the SatNav will guide me there as it is the biggest city I have driven in and I don’t particularly want to get too lost! Fingers crossed that the road numbering is clearer than in Salt Lake City!). Am a bit fed up of driving now, as I have driven over 6,500 miles in Thelma in 5 weeks.

Distance travelled today – 183 miles.

Distance travelled today - 183 miles

Bearwatch – 0 – I think they are too soggy to come out of hiding!