A Walk Along Devils Backbone

Time flies, and the miles zip by. This is a catch up post about two of the places we visited in Loveland, Colorado.

The Devil's Backbone open space and hiking trails were about two miles from the RV park we were staying at.  

It is another extended sandstone protrusion. From the road it does look like vertebrae rising up from the earth.

The hiking trails were easy and well marked. We walked a couple of miles, round trip.

One section of trail went up to a opening in the bottom of the ridge. It is called the "Key Hole".

We met a group of other hikes there and as is a common practice, we took their picture and they took ours. We had bought the camper shirts the day before at Rocky Mountain National Park.

The backbone ridge goes on for a couple of miles.

Later on the same day we went to the Benson Sculpture Garden in Loveland proper.

It is a beautiful public park with many large sculptures.

This happy frog was one of my favorites.

Of course he was happy, he was positioned very close to this perfect pond.

These are just a few of the other sculptures.

This was Craig's favorite.  He enjoyed taking a lot of pictures of them all. Fo me it was like a visual candy shop. So much movement and energy.

NOT at the sculpture garden

I tried to adopt a new pet at the Sinclair station, but he wouldn't fit on the motorhome dashboard.

We stayed in the Alfa on Friday to watch the US vs. France Women's World Cup game, and to rest a bit. 

Over the next few days we drove northeast through Nebraska to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We drove mostly "two lane" state and US Highways. We enjoyed seeing miles and miles of lush green corn and hay fields. It is a pretty time in the midwest.

We both need to renew our driver's licenses and voter registrations. (It can be done by mail, but it is much easier in person.) Craig is looking forward to taking a new eye exam so he can get the "glasses required" removed from his license. He doesn't need them to drive since his cataracts were removed last fall. 

image from web

We are also getting new rear tires this week. They are only five years old, and it was a toss-up on whether we could get another year of use out of them. Since we expect to drive at least another 4000 miles this summer, we decided to be safe rather than sorry. A rear blowout can do a lot of damage, and it is so much more relaxing to ride along if you are not worried about the tires.

image from web

It was quite a shock to come into the sphere of the midwest heat and humidity after such a delightfully cool June in Colorado. 
When we arrived in Sioux Falls on Sunday the temperature was pushing 100°. We are so glad we have full hook ups here at the Fairpark. Love that air conditioning!

We bought a bottle of Champagne that we are going to enjoy on Wednesday to celebrate our fifth anniversary of South Dakota residency. I count our full time life from when we moved into the Alfa permanently while waiting for the house to sell. That will be six years on August 16th. 

However we count it, it has been a good ride, and we hope we will be able to keep going for a few more.