D. Brim's photostream  

Unfortunately, Salt Lake City (where Jake gets dropped off) is not on 70, so we decide to cut northward on Colorado State Route 139, which cuts up the Western side of the state towards US 40. I highly recommend taking this road, since it's very scenic and almost nobody is on it. We're fully in the red rocks area at this point.

This is the last photo from the 5th of July. After this, we return to Salt Lake City and drop Jake back off at the airport, then journey off on our own.

Glenwood canyon is a very narrow corridor that is carved by the Colorado River. The overpass is actually the opposite direction of lanes. The canyon is so narrow that they couldn't fit the travel lanes next to each other! The elevated lanes appear to go to "nowhere" because they enter a tunnel carved in the rocks.

Continuing our tradition of not going in a straight line, this photo is actually taken facing eastwards. We travelled through the canyon, then turned around and headed through it in the opposite direction in order to take road photos in better light. Alas, it got a bit cloudy, hence the lightning in this picture.

After we made it through on this trip, we turned around and went back through again!

This is my last upload until at least next Tuesday. Have a Merry Christmas, everybody!

As we continue meandering our way westward through the I-70 corridor, we hop off for a few minutes to see the sights. This photo, from the Minturn area, is just an example of why the side road always beats the Interstate.

The long exposure is accomplished with a 10 stop ND filter. Definitely a specialty item, but it seems to always come in handy at some point on a landscape trip.

After crossing the Divide headed eastward in Loveland Pass, we start heading westward on 70, recrossing the Divide through the Eisenhower tunnel.

This is taken from the rest area located immediately before Vail Pass. You can't get this kind of cloud definition in visible light! The standard disclaimer regarding focus quality on my IR camera still applies, though.

While this weather turned out to be a non-event, the 6th and 7th both had some more potent weather.

Now, having (finally) left Rocky Mountain National Park, we proceed to cross the continental divide going eastward (like a bunch of idiots - our destination is Salt Lake City, to the west!).

The purpose of our detour is to travel across the Divide on US 6, through Loveland Pass (11990 feet). The road was bypassed in 1972 by I-70 through the Eisenhower Tunnel, but trucks using hazardous chemicals still need to use this road due to hazardous chemical restrictions. Luckily, we didn't run into too much truck traffic on our climb up the pass.

The pass was largely snowless, but we did get to see a treat: a pair of bighorn sheep. Alas, the lighting wasn't great, but I'm still sharing this one because it's not every day that you see a sight like this.

Next up: we finally start travelling in the general direction of our destination!