Time in Colorado

On Sunday morning Jeryl and I left our KOA in WaKenney, Kansas about 8am, after having a pancake breakfast in the KOA office. The sights were more of the same, golden field after golden field. But today we stopped and got a few pictures.

One interesting town Route 50 took us through was Dodge City. They had a section set up like an old west town and we took some pictures but did not tour.

As we pulled from the parking lot, we saw 2 things of interest, one a large grain bin, nicknamed "the Kansas skyscraper" and another a sign saying Teachers Hall of Fame and Gunslinger Wax Museum. Jeryl and I had a good laugh. We're not sure what Dodge City is saying about teachers and gunslingers. Maybe they have tough schools? lol

Back on the road and soon enough we entered Colorado and then stopped for our picnic lunch at a roadside park. Not as interesting as all the other parks we stopped at, but pretty nonetheless. We did see an interesting plant called a yucca.

Back on the road and on to Denver. Passing through Colorado Springs we began to see signs of the many forest fires. In one picture seen through our car, you can see the smoke. In another, also through the car, the whole sky looks dark and if you look close, you can see white wisps from the fire coming up from the moutains. We passed a "staging area" and saw at least 20 helicopters, many people and emergency vehicles.

We could even smell the smoke coming into our car, even with using "inside" air.

About 4pm Mtn time we arrived at my brother's. He lives in a suburb of Denver called Highlands Ranch. It took me a little time to adjust to the time difference, going from Kentucky to Colorado we gained back 2 hours. It's funny, all week here it seemed like the days lasted such a long time. I guess my body was still on KY time, thinking it was getting late, but then I would look at the clock here and it was 2 hours earlier than I guessed. We got up about 7:30 each morning and had a great time sightseeing and visiting with each other.

My brother Steve also lives nearby and we spent two days sightseeing in the mountains with him and Rick. We also got to visit with Rick's wife, Adalia, and her sister, Mindy, who was visiting from McAllen, TX. Mindy also had her 3 1/2 yr old grandson Eli with her. We enjoyed Eli so much. He is funny and smart and a tough little guy.

In the picture, that's Rick on the left and Steve on the right. Here's a pic of Rick's house.

Here are pictures of Rick's family, wife Adalia and daughter Kay. Another daughter, Sigrid, is working an intern job in South America this summer.

On Monday we drove to a place called Red Rocks. It was quite scenic. You are not allowed to climb on the rocks and if caught, there is a $999 fine. It's funny they couldn't just round it off to $1000. That sounds more scary, if you ask me. lol Here are pictures and a video after the pictures.

Video: Click the play button or click right on the video to play.

Also at Red Rocks there was a famous amphitheater where many famous musicians and groups have played over the years since it first opened in 1931. It can seat up to 9,450 people. Among some of the famous groups/people that have held concerts there are the Beatles, U2, Crosby Stills and Nash, Mariah Carey, Elton John, Sonny and Cher, Jimi Hendrix, and John Denver. Here is a picture of the place and another that shows the downtown Denver skyline in the distance, if you look real close.

After Red Rocks we drove through the mountains and stopped at a scenic stream. One thing we noticed were signs everywhere telling people no grilling or burning was allowed anywhere. At parks, such as the one we stopped at, there were coverings over the grills and signs in a chimney (used normally for making a fire) about no fires.

One nice thing we did every evening was to take a walk on a path/sidewalk that runs in front of Rick's neighborhood. The moutains are constantly in view and most evenings we saw a beautiful sunset.

On Tuesday we drove to Tiny Town, a town of miniatures that is 1/6 the normal size of buildings. There are more than 100 colorful buildings and a miniature train (of course) to take you through. But you can also walk through. Kids can peer inside the windows easily and even crawl into some of them.



                       



After Tiny Town we headed on a loop up through Mt. Evans. Along the way we saw an elk in a field so we decided to stop and take pictures. Luckily there was a boardwalk nearby. We got as close as we could and got some good pictures.

After that we continued up our drive almost to the top of Mt. Evans. It was in the 80s when we started and as we drove up and through a rain storm, the temp began to drop. At the highest point we made it to, it was only 49 degrees. Lovely after the 100s we had at the beginning of our Route 50 trip. Here are pictures.

That brings me to today, the 4th of July. Happy 26th birthday to my youngest son Michael. Hugs and kisses across the way to my firecracker baby. :0) We had a great day today because we all dressed up as clowns and walked in a local parade attended by thousands. We had candy to throw to the kids and Jeryl, my brother Steve, and I tried to seek out the shy kids or those too young to run out by themselves and hand them some candy. We had such fun smiling and waving and throwing candy.

That's Jeryl in the red and me in the blue in the above picture, in the back. After the parade we headed back to Rick's for a lunch of brisket and brats. It was nice eating a good meal and visiting with everyone. Here are pictures from the rest of our day. Thursday morning we head to Moab, Utah, a drive of about 8 hours. Until then, thanks for keeping up with our journey along Route 50. Happy trails!!

Late Saturday Night, June 30

It's a stormy night as I write, sitting in my KOA cabin, while Jeryl sleeps nearby. We've had such hot weather the whole trip with temps lately way above 102. About an hour after we pulled into our KOA in WaKenney, Kansas, we noticed dark skies, which was intriquing since we hadn't seen rain in a long time. We walked around taking pictures and lightening begin hitting nearby.

We ran for the cabin and soon the storm really began and it was relentless in its force. As you can tell from our pictures, the KOA cabins are tiny, but still they provide shelter in a storm, better than those unfortunate tent campers tonight. We have a front window and a back window and the front window is sheltered by the porch but the back window has nothing to prevent the rain from coming in when the wind is strong. We were watching a movie on our laptop when Jeryl felt a couple drops of rain. Turning around she saw the water was running down the wall from the window sill. Despite being tightly closed, the water was still coming in and about to soak the cover on the bed. So we pulled the bed forward and put all our bags on the bunk bed nearby. Soon it began to hail and thunder very loudly. It was scary for over an hour. It quieted down enough for us to make it to the shower house and get our shower but now it has started up again. Hopefully my internet connection will hold up long enough for me to finish my posting.

OK, so let's go back to yesterday when we left our KOA near St. Louis, Missouri. Again we headed onto our faithful Route 50, anxious to see what treats awaited us along the way. Coming into Tipton, MO, we spotted a very unique water tower.

Jeryl jokingly said the magic 8 ball must have been invented here but I thought about an 8 ball from a pool game. I googled Tipton later and found that indeed, one of the very first pool tables was built here in 1949 by Ewald Fischer. He built his business into the largest manufacturer of pool tables by 1968 and eventually sold to the Spalding Company. The water tower was painted this way as a means of marketing the pool table. When the company was sold, the tower was painted over in the '70s. After 20 years the townspeople decided they wanted their landmark back, and the tower was repainted. It is now considered as the world's largest 8 ball.

Heading on down the road, we stopped for lunch in Sedalia, MO at the Liberty Park, which was quite beautiful. It had a flower garden and gazebo, an old stone bridge going over a large lake, a neat old trellis, and a fat squirrel that Jeryl nicknamed Fatty.

We had quite a good time walking around and exploring and also trying to take pictures of "Fatty". He was very interested in our picnic lunch and kept creeping closer and closer. We did "break down" and give him some pieces of bread.

Back on the road and soon we arrived at our next KOA in Oak Grove, Missouri, very close to Kansas City, MO. We checked in and then looked online at the nearby restaurant offerings. We love reading the reviews and a bunch of people had recommended a local mom and pop place called PT's Restaurant. Everyone loved the pork tenderloin sandwiches and onion rings. One girl even said the onion rings were as big as a softball so we decided we had to see for ourselves. We also found out the PT in the name stands for pork tenderloin.

As you can see from the pictures, the girl online didn't lie. lol. Luckily we only ordered the pork tenderloin sandwich because our waitress told us if we had gotten the dinner, the tenderloin was twice as big as the sandwhich. And we got the full order of onion rings but our eyes were bigger than our stomaches this time. We had to take part of the tenderloin and onion rings home. The waitress also told us there is a couple that drives up from Arkansas once a month just to eat their tenderloin. Now that's dedication!

Later that evening we enjoyed a 30 minute walk around the camp, checking out all the unbelievably big RVs. See at the KOA camps, you can tent camp, park an RV or stay in a cabin. So there are always alot of RVs. This one we saw on our walk was HUGE and the front of it was actually the size of a big rig. And they were pulling a closed-in trailer just as tall. I told Jeryl the only thing they could possibly be pulling in that trailer was a helicopter, and I got a laugh out of her. But that's how tall the trailer was.

This morning we were up and on the road into Kansas by 10. We are on Central Time, by the way, and it's hard not to think in Eastern Time. Kansas didn't have a lot to offer except corn fields and more corn fields and today was probably the most boring on Route 50 but we did happen upon a couple of interesting sites by keeping our eyes peeled.

Jeryl saw a sign to an old stone bridge so we turned around and went down the gravel road. Along the way I remarked on how creepy the road was with the overhanging trees and not being able to see too far. Around a bend, we saw an old house on the left with goats in the yard and tree limbs down everywhere. We wondered if a storm had come by recently or if they just were too lazy to pick them up. Suddenly we see these things hanging on the fence and I was about to ask Jeryl what they were when she said "those are skulls." And then we were definitely creeped out, thinking about all those horror movies were people go down these back roads and you are sitting in your movie seat telling them to turn around and go back and quit being idiots. Well we were those idiots today but we wanted to see that stone bridge so we kept going.

Finally we came around another bend and there it was. You had to park and walk across it because it was no longer in use. It was very scenic, with the river pretty far below. Here are the pics from our walk (and no, no boogie man came out of the woods at us...) It is the Clements Stone Bridge and was built in 1886 and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

That is a bird in the picture above, flying over the bridge. When we drove back by the goat skulls, I told Jeryl to slow down and I would get a picture. As it looked too small in my camera window, I tried to bring up the zoom and got nervous when Jeryl said someone was coming out of the house. So I snapped a quick picture but didn't get any more. I wanted you to see there were 6 skulls on the fence, all in different states of deterioration. CREEPY!!! Oh, if you click on any picture on this blog, it will become bigger and all the pictures on this blog will be found at the bottom of the screen and you can go through them in slide show fashion.

OK, so we made it safely to the main road, after Jeryl scared me by shouting, "they're coming!!" and I shouted back, "GO, GO!!!" and then she laughed at me and said she was just kidding. Funny, yeah, right. So on a few miles and I got my stomach back to normal and I saw what looked like an old school house on my side of the road. (Jeryl was driving.) I asked her to stop and she did and it was a very interesting site. We looked it up later and found this information about it.

The District 34 one room schoolhouse was built in 1896 and used until 1946 when it closed due to low enrollment of only 2 students. In 2004, it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Back on the road again and nothing else interesting happened along Route 50. Soon we stopped for lunch in Emporia, Kansas. Again, we found an interesting city park. It had an unusual tower, similar in looks to the Washington Monument. On one side were a series of handprints going from the bottom to the top. They prints started out small and were large at the top. Here are some pics. There was no sign explaining the tower.

Another interesting thing was the swing set. You know how they usually have a baby swing, that is safe and holds the baby in so they don't fall out when they swing? Ok, so what do you think this big "baby swing" is for? We had no clue but I had fun taking my picture in it. It had the safety restraints, just like the baby swing. Weird.

Back on the road, and this is where the boring part of today started. All we saw for hours and hours was cornfields or fields of grass. And they were so flat you could see for miles, on both sides of the road. The only saving grace was when we happened upon a "field" of wind towers on both sides of the road. They stretched too, as far as you could see. I stared endlessly at them, imagining the power they must be generating. Here is also a short video of the wind towers. We probably drove past the towers for over 5 miles. No kidding! There are 2 pictures of the wind towers and then the video. To play the video, click the "play" arrow.

We were finally almost to Dodge City, Kansas, along Route 50, when Jeryl told me our KOA was north, on another road, and it would take us almost an hour to get there. By then it was 5:30 so we trudged along. Finally around 6:30, WaKenney, Kansas came into sight and I was never so happy to get off the road and into our camp.

Soon we headed into town for supper at a local "saloon" that was recommended online. It was right downtown and looked fairly normal from the outside, although there was a strange wooden sculpture in the window.

We didn't find any dusty cowboys or bar fights inside, just a normal looking restaurant, with western decorations on the wall and good food soon brought to our table. I had salmon with a great cucumber sauce and Jeryl had hamburger steak.

After supper we headed back to the KOA and went to the little gift shop. We each had a root beer float and bought some post cards and then went for a walk around the camp, before the storm approached. Here are some of the cute pics we took. Oh, and we found Clark Kent's phone booth. :0)

The rock Jeryl is standing in front of is standard "fencing" material in Kansas. I asked the KOA clerk why they used rock instead of wood and felt foolish when she told me that in the old days, that's all they could find to use was rock, since trees weren't very abundant. I had just passed through hours and hours of fields, seeing very little trees, and hadn't processed they would need other fencing material.

We also saw a very unsual "spot" for the pets to take a pee.

And that brings us back to current time, where it is about 1am here and Jeryl is still fast asleep, oblivious to my typing. I love posting, but it sure takes a long time because I have to download the pictures from my Iphone to my computer, reduce their file size, and then write and upload to my blog as I post. Whew, it's bedtime for me. We're getting up at 7, will have the KOA pancake breakfast at 7:30, and then will get on the road back to Route 50 and then onto Colorado. Jeryl says it looks to be a 10 hour driving day. Sure hope we don't run into any of those forest fires out there.

Til I post again, thanks for reading, hope you learned something or had a good laugh. Happy trails!!!