Custer SD to Creede CO

26 Jul

July 20, 2021

It was 66 degrees and Sunny when we pulled out of Custer, SD at 7:15 AM.  It was an early start for us because we had planned  a very long driving day. We drove to Thornton, CO, just north of Denver, the halfway point to our eventual Destination of Creede, CO.  As we started out, we commented on the sunny, and hazy sky.  Was it smoke?  It was a reminder of our last RV trip to Alaska when we were stranded in Homer, AK due to smoke and road closures.  Today was nothing like that, but, very hazy.

Haze or Smoke?

We arrived in Thornton in the mid afternoon and parked in the RV section of Cabela’s parking lot.  I contacted the store manager before we left on our trip to ensure we could park there for the night.  We were surprised that there was only one RV in the lot when we arrived and it left soon after we got settled in to our space. 

In Thornton, we were able to do some shopping at Costco and had take-out from Raising Canes…one of our favorite Chicken restaurants.

When we returned to Cabela’s, there was a Semi parked right next to us.  He only stayed about 2 hours.  So, we were the only ones in the RV area for the night. We weren’t really worried, but, we knew we needed to be very aware of our surroundings.  Ken slept better than I did, which was not at all.  In the morning when we raised our shades we discovered a small RV that had pulled in sometime in the night.  If I had only known that there were other people around, I might have been able to sleep!

We left Thornton at 8:30 AM and headed towards Creede, CO.  The distance was 268 miles and should have taken us aprox 4.5 hours.  Due to an Accident, we traveled 13 miles in 2 hrs.  So, actually, we didn’t get started until 10:30 AM.  Since, I am failure at map reading (Ken tells everyone)and unfamiliar with the Denver area, it was impossible to find an alternate route.   Not a very good start to our day!

Once we were on our way, the scenery and landscape were breathtaking.  We passed many large ranches and all of them had unique gate entrances.  As we drove along, I tried to imagine what life would be like living on a Ranch.  It would definitely being interesting!

We finally arrived in Creede at the Mountain Views at Rivers Edge RV Resort.  We were assigned to a great space on the front row with a mountain view.  As we were parking and getting set up it became very windy with rain, thunder, and lightning.  Seeing Creede will have to wait until tomorrow!