Day 29: Eagle CO - Fort Larrington

So I went back to the tyre place.  Nice Lady from last night not there.  Other Nice Lady summoned up a spannerman who, in the manner of spannermen the world over, sucked his teeth and said "Werrrl, maybe this afternoon".  Bother.

I was about to depart when Other Nice Lady came rushing out and said "Try the airport.  They have rental cars and maybe your lot will have an operation there".  After recovering from the shock occasioned by learning the there was enough flat ground anywhere between Denver and Glenwood Springs to build an airport big enough to support rental car agencies (plural) I did as she suggested and Lo! there was an Avis desk!  On explaining my sorry tale of woe to Nice Avis Lady she bade me fetch The Luggage, fill in a form and leave the ASBO in her tender care while I made good my return to Denver in this:

Hallelujah!  Hallelujah!  Ride my...

Is it a Kia?  Is it a Hyundai?  Is it even, perchance, an Audi or yet a Pikey Old Beemer?  Why, no!  No, it is not.  'tis a Chevrolet Malibu, the automotive equivalent of a fridge.  It goes "BONG" even more than most USAnian cars.  The only thing it did better than the ASBO was not to muck about with GraceNote for album art and instead just use the embedded tag in the .mp3 file, thus correctly portraying Wilko as a guitar-slinging crazy and not some mini-skirted bimbo.  No-one would want to see the real Wilko in a mini-skirt.  Or if they would, I'll thank them to cease reading the Automatic Diary and never return.

The Chevy Beko took me east along I-70 again and so busy was I internally railing against the architects who do ski resorts while passing Vail that I missed the turning for Loveland Pass completely and had to go through the Eisenhower Tunnel and then double back.  This part of Colorado has been getting Weather, and thus the summit was well above the cloudbase, which wasn't preventing motorised morons from stooging up and down the pass with no lights on.

Ski resorts, yes.  There are two kinds of people who design ski resorts, viz.

1. One who've seen one single picture of St Moritz, and
2. Stalin

Vail and Aspen are the former but there are plenty of the latter on display every time the Tour de France has a mountain-top finish.

I went back over Guanella Pass next, where it was SNOing.  Rather glad it wasn't like this:

SNO, Colorado, Wednesday

when I was rolling around on the floor wrestling with the ASBO's spare wheel.  Then down to the parkland beyond Kenosha Pass - "Parkland" in Colorado being what the rest of us call "Flat stuff with cows. On it."  Park County Road 77 turned ot to be a Thing of Beauty but in spite of being a lot shorter than the route I planned originally, still left me chewing my nails that I'd get the Chevy Smeg back to Denver in time.  One day I'll learn how to budget final-day miles properly, though I did make it with thirty minutes to spare and the Avis chap batted nary an eyelid at turning up in a Chevy Hotpoint instead of a bellowing red monster covered in muck.

Hurrah: I have a seat with extra legroom!
Bah: Next to a child with lungs like unto a brace of foghorns.

But BRITAIN was still where I left it.  LHR Terminal 3 means a long walk to the bus stop chiz and I still have the M25 to look forward to tomorrow.  I don't propose to mention that or, indeed, anything else for this year's gripping, nay, riveting Automatic Diary, so here to tide you over until next time is a bridge: