Up, Up, and Away!

Sunday night in Ohio.
Monday night in Illinois.
Tuesday night in Missouri.
Wednesday night in Kansas.
Thursday night in Colorado.

Whew.
That's a lot of moving around. Two hundred years ago, that trip alone would have taken months!

About Kansas: Kansas has a tourist slogan: “It’s as big as you think.” That sounds about right. It felt like we were in Kansas forever. We saw a gigantic wind farm with hundreds of gigantic modern-looking windmills in central Kansas. They were all stockstill. You could see them from 10 miles away.

We stopped at Russell, KS for lunch at the McDonald’s. I hoped to see Bob Dole or at least a museum in his honor, but no such luck. (I played Bob Dole in our high school role-playing Senate government class when I was a senior.) Russell is his home town.

We did have a few scary moments coming out of Kansas and into Colorado. Some very strange-looking clouds were coming east toward us. There was a lot of swirling and drifting going on – some of the small clouds came down and ran along the ground, almost like the climactic scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. We were glad to get through that area.

Coming into the Rocky Mountains, my first impression of them is amazement at how abruptly they start. There are many foothills leading up to the Appalachian Mountains that gradually increase in size and slope. But the Rockies seem to just begin!

Friday morning we woke up and drove to Colorado Springs, about an hour and a half south from where Adam and Patti live. It was a beautiful day with a lot of blue sky with white puffy clouds.

We attempted to ride the cog train up Pike's Peak, but the morning trains were all sold out. So Debbie told me to just drive our van up to the summit. OK. She has a lot of faith in me.

We started out at the base of Pike's Peak at 11:22 a.m. (That's the peak in the background.)


It is a 19 mile trip to the top, with a lot of dirt roads, very few guardrails, and hairpin turns. (My knuckles are just now beginning to get some color back in them!) Helpfully, there is a section near the top called, "Bottomless Pit". That's where Daniel wanted to get out and play (no joke). Here's where we went above the tree line:

What would you expect to find at the top of a barren mountain? If you said a gift shop, give yourself a gold star! Here are some views at the top:

It really was beautiful up there. The scenery and views were breathtaking. It is said that Pike's Peak helped inspire the song, "America the Beautiful" and that it was written up there. Purple-mountain majesties, indeed.

I expected the journey back down to the base of the mountain to be worse than the ascent, but actually it wasn't so bad. There is a mandatory brake check halfway down, and our van passed with flying colors. We got back down to the bottom at 2:55 p.m.

We tried to find lunch at this point, but could find no restaurants before we reached our next stop at the Garden of the Gods. This is really an amazing place with red rocks that look like they're out of a science fiction movie. Seriously, it looks like you're on Mars! Very cool - we enjoyed crawling around on them a bit.

We ventured out to find something to eat and tracked down a Subway. It was okay, but unfortunately Debbie now says she can't eat any more Subways on this trip. And it’s only Day 5!

We returned to the Garden of the Gods for some more sightseeing. It was very hot, and we were getting tired, so we began the drive back to Longmont. First, though, we drove through the Air Force Academy and saw the Cadet's Chapel (from the outside, it was already closed for the day.) Then we went to Red Rocks on the outskirts of Denver. There was a big concert going on, so we just took a quick look around the outer area.

We stopped for gas, and the girls began literally begging to get a candy bar. I just had to take a picture:

Yes, they got their candy bars.

We grabbed a quick bite of supper at KFC at 8:00 p.m. We hit the 2000 mile mark just before getting back to Adam and Patti’s. More tomorrow . . .