We are all so excited to get on the road that some of us did not even sleep last night. We decided to take our time and pack up the van and get ready. We did manage to get on the road by about 10am. Today we are driving 157 miles to Steamboat Springs. This is a very scenic drive through the Poudre Canyon (that's right I said Poudre) and over two mountain passes, Cameron Pass and Rabbit Ears Pass.

The drive through the canyon was absolutely gorgeous. We drove along the River and stopped at several spots to take pictures and to take in the scenery.

Near the top of Cameron Pass I spotted a moose. I probably scared my fellow travelers when I started clapping and yelling moose, moose, moose, turn around. Eric turned the van around and we all piled out to take pictures of one of the biggest bulls I have ever seen. He was truly majestic. And...we caused a traffic jam. There were about 10 other cars pulled over taking photo's by the time we left.

It's a good thing we saw the moose because we had planned to hike to the top of Montgomery Pass and as we were turning around we realized we had missed the trail head. It was about 200 yards before Mr. Moose. We parked the car, had a snack and headed up the hill.

Our hike was absolutely wonderful. We started off near a little creek. We walked through tons of wildflower fields and through beautiful, lush woods. We could hardly believe we were still in Colorado because it was so green. After about 2 miles of uphill hiking we reached tree line. The alpine bowls were filled with wildflowers, snow fields and amazing scenery. We stopped and made snowballs and enjoyed the wide open views. After a while we headed back down the mountain for lunch.

We drove on a few miles to the summit of Cameron Pass and found a picnic spot. Ray and I enjoyed a beer and we all had a delicious veggie wrap.

After lunch we drove a little further down the road to The Moose Welcome center. We stopped and took a photo of a life size moose sculpture made entirely of barbed wire. Even he wasn't quite as big as the bull we stopped to see earlier. Next stop Kutuk Condo's in Steamboat.

We arrived at our condo at around 6pm. It took us 8 hours to go 157 miles. We did not break any land speed records but we sure had fun along the way. Our condo is awesome and again the views are stunning. We are right on a river and next to the ski area.

I made spaghetti dinner and we drank a bottle of our homemade Pinot Noir and for dessert we drank a bottle of our Chocolate Orange Port. We had a blast sitting around the dinner table, reliving our first day on holiday. Just when we thought it couldn't get any better a full moon rose right outside our door and directly over the ski area. What a great way to end the perfect day.