Any time you have to drive back to an airport and end a vacation, it isn’t fun. It’s even worse when you have to watch the spectacular Rocky Mountains fade in your rear-view mirror. Such was the case on Day 8, as I wrapped up my week-long journey of driving and hiking around the mountains of Colorado.
Earlier in the day, I checked another hike off my list — the climb to the top of Mount Royal, overlooking Frisco, Colorado. Frisco was only a few miles from my hotel in Silverthorne, and both towns are only a couple of hours from Denver’s airport. I had allowed three hours, which gave me a little wiggle-room for a couple of stops in the mile-high city, before calling it quits. I cleaned up at the hotel, checked out, and made the daunting drive over the Continental Divide (technically, under it, through the Eisenhower Tunnel), and then down, down, down, into the metropolis.
There weren’t any more opportunities for photos on this part of the trip, but you can watch the entire drive, to get a feel for the depressing trip you’ll face, when you, too, must leave the mountains behind, and drive back to reality.
Here’s the drive from Frisco to Federal Boulevard in Denver (where I detoured to a car wash — no way I’m paying an extra fee for a dirty rental car!)…
… and Federal Boulevard to Denver International Airport:
A final check of the odometer on my rental car proves that this is a low-impact road trip. I managed to keep it below 1,000 miles, with a final total of 959.7.
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