West Coast Vacation-Day Two

The day did not begin auspiciously. I woke at 6:10am and promptly took Kelsey out to do her thing, brought her back in gathered up the truck keys to get out her breakfast (and mine) only to discover when I returned to the room that I had neglected to pick up the room key card! A walk to the office netted me another card-that problem solved. Next, I set off the smoke alarm in the room with my toaster! After airing out the room for the non-existent smoke I ate my breakfast spilling yogurt on my shirt. That cleaned up pretty well, glad it wasn't toothpaste that stuff doesn't just wipe off! Got ready to take Kelsey out for another walk and load up a bit only she wasn't in the room! At some point she made a break for it. A search in a panic turned her up sitting beside a silvery-gray pickup truck, unfortunately it wasn't MY silvery-gray pickup truck!

Finally on the road much later than planned we headed west from Hays, still on Interstate 70. West of Hays the land gets flatter. Some people say that Kansas is flat and boring but I don't think it's flat and perhaps monotonous would be better. You drive up long shallow grades, there are no road cuts and you always go over the crossing highways (elsewhere they mostly they go over you.) I always have the sensation that the road is going up, I don't know if it really does or that I know it must to get from Kansas City's elevation of 882 feet above sea level to Denver's "mile high"! There is still wheat, and cows plus now there is hay! Also now you begin to see the great irrigation systems used out here. The further you travel west of Longitude 38 the less rain there is and here in western Kansas they use great wheeled systems that revolve around a central point creating perfectly round circles of hay or whatever. Gives new meaning to the words "crop circle" doesn't it? My Mom used to be able to name all the towns in this part of Kansas: Russell, Hays, Ellis, WaKeeney, Colby, Goodland--somewhere in there is Quinter. That's how often we drove through here on our way to the Rockies. I have to say that if you've ever had the yen to see the world's largest prairie dog or pet a living six-legged steer this is the place! Somewhere between Colby and Goodland you cross over to the mountain time zone--I missed the sign put I know it's there! It isn't long after Goodland until you cross the state line into that magical place, Colorado. There is a nice wooden brown and white sign saying so in very large letters! There has always been such a sign except for a few years in the 1990's when they put up a more modern-looking multi-colored sign (Colorful Colorado is their motto, or was) no one liked it, everyone complained so the now this sign was put in and is much more like the oldest. Everyone is happy. :) The land begins to get less flat and takes on a silvery sage green. I no longer just feel I'm going up, I am going up! Here we get to add Barley and Oats to the crop list (I only know this as I saw a feed store sign offering certified seed for that, goota keep your eyes open.) There are more horses here as well, more and more hay and cows the further west we go. Just before you arrive in Limon you top and hill (which doesn't seem all that significant) and BOOM there's Pike's Peak! Some times it's so hazy you can't even see it but today it was glorious! This next section of highway has a lot a memories attached to it. Before we had an air-conditioned car I can remember by mom's skirt floating up on the breeze from the car vents and her laughing and laughing, she always said she felt "beat to death" by the wind! About this time we usually got punchy and would laugh at anything and everything, once my middle brother had a set of toy wind-up teeth and he wound them up laid them flat in his hand so they'd chatter, pinch his lips together to hide his teeth and point to his mouth as we passed other cars. I don't know if the other people even noticed but I'm still laughing! Back then this stretch of Interstate wasn't complete so we ground along on two-way roads with a long way between gas stations! When I was learning to drive Dad let me drive here (after interstate) as there was no traffic to speak of. Now it is a busy, busy road. All along the way the front range of the Rockies rises above the horizon only to fall again depending on whether you're at the top or the bottom of the hill. Next, you have to drive through Denver-a BIG city with lots of highways going lots of places, luckily I get to just keep going, whew! Now you are in the mountains, really going up until you reach the Eisenhower tunnel then its a steep grade down into Dillon. Again I think how green it is and how much snow is left in the "high country" then I realize that I haven't been on this part of the road except in the late summer or winter and this is spring. Next up is Independence pass, also known as Vail pass hitting over 10,000 feet in elevation, somewhere in between you cross the continental divide and the streams begin running to the west instead of the east, it's kind of odd to see. I keep seeing all the patches of ponderosa pine killed by some bug and aspen trees (killed by no one knows) and thinking of forest fire. This is fire country, all those dead trees provide a lot of fuel for a lightening strike or any of the other ways forest fires can start--I think it would be catastrophic. As we head down the western slope towards Grand Junction the land begins to change again, fewer and fewer trees more buttes and mesas until you reach the start of canyon lands. But that is for tomorrow.

The day ended as oddly as it began, with a 5 minute call to tech support to get connected to the internet!