29. & 30. Denver, Colorado and Wilson Lake State Park, Kansas

Denver Colorado and Lake Wilson, Kansas Photos

Today we headed  towards Denver Colorado. This was the end of our fabulous canyon experience which was by far the highlight of our trip. We headed east on the highway 70 .....we noticed the landscape change before  our eyes .... it went from Canyon views to Rocky Mountains views.....and from red Cliffs to lush green hills. The drive was going smoothly until I decided I needed the  rest stop in the town of Eagle Colorado. As we pulled in off the highway a young lady was directing traffic, she asked us "are you here just for the rest stop or will you be going to do the free white water raft thing?"  I thought to myself wow free rafting .... so I quickly responded "white water rafting"  of course. Was it possible that we were going to go rafting for free,? So we parked the car and went towards the table to sign up. I as to why  they were offering free rafting? The town of Eagle wanted to promote rafting in the area. Bonusssss !!!!

Wow.... how lucky were we that we were going to have a free lunch and some rafting to boot.... in addition, we were lucky enough to sign up for the last time slot available. So we picked out of life jacket and her helmet and proceeded towards the river. Originally I thought this was the Colorado River but in fact it was the Eagle River which is a tributary of the Colorado River. The rafting guy told us of these were class III rapids. this was gonna funnnnn!!!! As we were hanging around the lunch area we are heard one of the

guides say that he was missing two people for the 1:30 time slot so I quickly responded we can come. So off we went to a free time slot. I had packed the go Pro which I've scarcely used on the trip so I decided to actually take it out and hang it on my neck and videotape and take pictures of this rafting experience. Johnny a tour guy from New Zealand was awesome ....he was funny and made the rafting experience super super fun albeit a short 20 minute rafting ride .....but it was definitely a lot of fun. As we came off the boat we hopped onto a bus and were taken back to the rest area..... just in time for our second time slot at 2 o'clock . This time I made sure to sit right up front so I can get a good view of the river for taking pictures and video taping with the goPro. Once again we had a terrific terrific time and it was all for free so this was a bonus for us and I made our day. Who knew that the need to go for a pee turned out to be a fun rafting afternoon. We had another two hours to go before we got to Denver so we decided to quickly head back to the highway and make away. Up until this point  all of our campsites were booked .....this was the first time we were going to try to find something along the way. This proved to more difficult than we thought because  campsites were expensive. So we decided to go for an airbnb.....phewww!!!

The next morning we drove east again.....this time towards Lake Wilson in Kansas. At this point, our main focus is to drive 5-7 hours a day and camp . Peter found a very pretty campsite right on Lake Wilson. We ate  then went by the went by the water to watch the sunset!!! We started to reminisce about our journey and concluded how lucky and grateful we are to have seen such beauty. Tomorrow we head over to St. Louis!!!

love ya and miss ya.

Mary and Peter..