I <3 my car

I went for a drive today. Despite it being Sunday, I was not what anyone in their right mind would call a Sunday Driver.


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That's the route. A nice warmup down I-70 (at 75+ mph, accelerating up hills in 6th gear) and back, then out to Boulder. From there I figured I'd just take a backroad back to Golden. That's what happened, but the back road was .... very back road, heh. I drove by the Flagstaff Restaurant (which I've seen featured on FoodTV and/or travel channel) and kept going up Flagstaff road. I figured it'd loop around back towards Estes Park or Idaho Springs or something. Nope, it heads off towards Gross Reservoir, which is pretty cool. Failing to find a place to stop and take pictures, I turned right at a sign that said "Hwy 72" (the other direction said "no outlet").

This is what the road looks like:



Yeah. It was muddy, slushy, no guardrails and just over one lane wide. I had to pull as far right as possible a couple times to let Jeep Cherokees and other SUVs by.

But I made it. I stopped at a liquor store where the dirt road meets Hwy 72 and got out. Yeesh, the car was a mess. I got Mountain Dew and cruised back down the road through Golden, got back on I-70 and came home, stopping at a gas station. I didn't need fuel that much (still 1/3 of the tank the dealership gave me) but I needed a carwash.



$23 in diesel and $9 for a 'premium' carwash later, and I'm about 94 miles away from being able to redline the engine. (According to the diesel geeks at tdiclub.com you should keep it at/below 3800 rpm the first 500 miles, after that wind it out to 5100 all you want). 135 miles according to my car, in about 3 hours (including the stop at the liquor store). Odd, google maps says it's 136 and should take 3.5 hours.....

That was fun.