1 year anniversary mega-trip
The r-dub site has been online one year as of 5/12/06, and I thought it best to celebrate with another roadtrip. I planned this one out before leaving home, and just kept going until the batteries in my camera were dead and the memory card in my camera almost full. What I was left with was a ton of pictures and a car with an additional 720 miles on it. Okay, maybe this trip was a little too long...
Pretty sure my car hates me at this point
We're headed down Poudre canyon now! While quite a scenic drive (made clear to me by the fact that Mr. Rand McNally highlighted the road in my map), it's quite lengthy since we can't get rolling that fast.
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'Cause nothin' says lovin' like burnt wood and ash in your drinking water.
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Heading down the canyon. Poudre Canyon alternates between narrow and wide for the next, oh, say, 50 miles.
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Shutting up and letting the scenery speak for itself.
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Another spot where 14 can get closed in times of inclement weather.
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A wide spot in the canyon.
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Yeah, since there's soooo many other roads in a canyon.
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Reassuarance shield sighting.
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A common sight in the canyon. There's plenty of national forest land to go around, and there's plenty of fish to catch, too. People pull over wherever they can to take in some of this.
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Interspersed in the canyon lies various residences. Talk about a hard life!
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Profile Rock under some cloud cover. Never fails, I wanted this pic to come out better than this.
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When your crapper has to take a crap, turn here.
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The Cache La Poudre River running at about half peak snowmelt runoff level.
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Since there's some private property up here, the DOW lets us know when it's OK to fish again.
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The canyon is starting to tighten up again.
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Nice.
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Rare bridge specimen off the starboard bow!
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Traveling on the old skool bridge.
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Coming back over the bridge. There was absolutely no spot to stop to take pictures, especially with a very mean looking dog watching me on the right just outside the pic's range. At least I got these pics!
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Dude! We got ourselves a groovy centerline again! Far out!
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Dancing Arrow drops by to say hi and that 50 won't cut it on the next curve.
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A dip in the road.
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The dip even gets paved in cement. And no, that isn't the motorcyclist laying in front of his bike: it's his helmet strapped to the bike.
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Looking uphill from the dip.
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Just when I thought we were almost out of the canyon.
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Tightening up.
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What I wouldn't give to have a car with some massive handling right now.
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A beautiful hand-carved tunnel specimen. The river goes under the rock outcropping on the left. And don't you love where the clearance sign is?
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Looking through the tunnel. The left white thing on the right side is CDOT's asset tag for this tunnel. Yes, that's water leaking from the roof of the tunnel.
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I seem to have found a party! And considering it's graduation weekend for CSU and CU-Boulder, I bet I know what the party is for!
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Here's where this trip almost ended, for two reasons: First, some numbnuts pulled out right in front of me. I barely missed plowing into the side of his car. Second, four words: College Girls In Bikinis. Rawr. (Sorry guys, no pics: those are mine! :)
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Looks like the wall was poured directly into the rocks here.
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Alright, here's the plan. If I hit a cow on the road, I'll strap it to my car and head back to the party. If not, we'll keep heading east. (Please let there be a cow, please let there be a cow.....)
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Standard flow control for mountain rivers and creeks.
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This is an impressively long canyon.
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Looks like I don't get to go back to the party. Damn.
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Cattle guard, mountain west style. This is also pretty much the indication that we're out of Poudre Canyon and back on the Front Range again.
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Now at the intersection of US 287 and SH 14. 14 is a broken route, not actually being a part of 287. So, yeah, I'll count this as a pseudo-end!
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The 285/14 intersection is known as Ted's Place. Here's a Colorado Information Presenter 3000 telling you all about it.
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This used to be a different sign. The TO SH 14 used to be typed out.
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Approaching Laporte. 287 now lives on a bypass of the town. Some books say that 14 still runs through the town, but as you can see that is an error.
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Looking down the Laporte Bypass.
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Highway planners, in their infinite wisdom, decided to end the bypass by making the traffic on the bypass stop and turn. Whaa?
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287 heads left while CR54G heads right.
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Another END! Will wonders never cease? (#17)
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The intersection of US 287 and SH 1.
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The first reassuarance shield heading northeast on 1.
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SH1 follows section lines all the way to Wellington.
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Speaking of Wellington, here we are!
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SH 1 ends at I-25 just to the east of Wellington.
- Where to next?
- Page 9
- This trip's Index
- Page 11
Section Links
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with any of the orginizations listed within this site. I'm just a bored roadgeek with way too much time on his hands. All of the picts in this page are mine and mine alone unless otherwise noted. Remember, kids: stealing is bad, mmmm-k? I get quite pissy if things are taken without telling me. I don't like to be pissy. You won't like it either. If you want to link to this page, that's fine. Please shoot me an email beforehand so I can link to your page as well. K? Thanks. --Ryan
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