So I was planning to leave home at 7am on Saturday – a little ambitious given that I had a few things to get ready.  8 o’clock would have been fine as well.  In any case as I was loading up – I never had a chance to fit-check everything – I realized that my telescope case takes up way too much space.  In the end, I ended up pulling the passenger seat as I did on my 2006 road trip.  Oh well, I was on the road at 9:30.

Programmed my GPS to take the shortest route – which is not the quickest as it literally takes the shortest mileage route.  This is actually kind of nice as you end up taking the smaller state highways and it’s a bit more scenic.  The downside is of course it’s slower – but the GPS showed only an hour difference, what the heck!  Well, there are also some issues with construction and detours…  That extra hour was turning into about two hours – given my late departure this was making for a long day.

Somewhere in southwestern MN just above the IA border I decided to go back to the fastest route.  This put me on I-29 down to Omaha and the I-76 over to Doniphan where I was spending the night.  Maybe not as scenic, but better none the less.  I got to my campground a little after 7pm.  Got setup, made dinner and crashed.

Sunday morning I was on the road again about 9:30 and arrived at my campground near Golden, CO a little after 4pm MT – another long day but at least I have the extra hour of sunlight to work with.  Speaking of, time to go make some dinner!

On to Utah tomorrow!