Road Trip: Keblar Pass

We headed out, driving towards another National Park. We went through the flat lands of the San Luis Valley, passing by random tourist things like an alligator farm and what was called a "UFO Watchtower" (I was tempted to stop, but we were in a hurry).

But I couldn't help myself and pulled over at this old abandoned house along the side of the road.



We had been driving for awhile, and you could still see the Great Sand Dunes off in the distance across the flat valley.



When we made our itinerary for this trip months ago, we planned a relatively short day of driving from the Sand Dunes over to the town of Montrose. But the Colorado Highway Department had other ideas. Our original route was closed due to construction on a bridge. So we had to detour around the mountains, which nearly doubled our driving time for the day.

Our detour took us over Keblar Pass, which was an incredibly scenic drive through the Gunnison National Forest. The road passed through massive groves of aspens and by towering mountains.



The pass sits at an elevation of 10,007 feet. We did not see any Keebler Elves along the road at Keblar Pass.





Finally we made it through the pass and started towards Montrose. We were staying at the Minecart Motor Lodge, a Route-66 style motel that had been recently rennovated. We laughed every time Siri gave us directions to it, since she would pronounce "Minecart" as "Minnie-curt." We eventually made it and checked in. But we didn't spend too much time there. We set down the bags and then drove right towards the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. Some photos of our stormy visit there on the next post....