Highway 40

After that, I continued into the mountains and over the Continental Divide.

The snow was very fine (this was in February) and I spent a couple of days skiing. The resort town of Winter Park has about three traffic lights, I think, and it doesn't take long for development to give way to ranches and national forests. I stayed in Granby, an old-fashioned railroad town where the manager of my hotel took it upon himself to go outside and practice the bagpipes in the afternoon.

The region is called Middle Park (with "park" defined in this context as a high valley among mountains; there is also a North Park and the eponymous South Park). The Continental Divide rings around it and marks the boundary from several directions, making it isolated and producing a lot of snow.

West of Granby, the road follows the Colorado River to Hot Sulfur Springs.

I stopped at the Grand County Historical Museum. The story of the region to a large extent seems to be about transportation: trains, wagons, tunnels and any other methods they could think of to climb over the mountains without getting stuck. Here are some of the items children brought with them on the overland trails.

A lively woman who works at the museum (everyone in Grand County can be described as "lively") told me the Indians used to drive buffalo off the cliffs in the nearby town of Kremmling. Today, people hit golf balls down the cliffs, she said. I tried to look concerned: Couldn't the ball hit an innocent bystander? "Yes," she said, "But they don't care."