7-15-2010 Travel Day, On to St. Louie

Headed through Kansas. Mike was unaware that the KC Royals play in MO, not KS. Stopped at the stadium because it was right next to the visitor center where we were picking up our obligitory new state map. Spent the night in Salina, not much happening here. An old car cruise was the major excitement we saw here. Heading toward St. Louis in the morning.
Spent the night just west of St. Louis in a burg called St. Charles. It is an old town, known as the starting point for Lewis and Clark. Boy... every town west of the Mississippi has something to do with the L & C expedition! Had dinner in a neat, very old, downtown St. Charles, at an outdoor patio restaurant, where by sheer coincidence, Melissa saw an old friend from the community center. They were seated at the table next to us, and had just moved there a month previous.

Next morning we headed into St. Louis, 20 miles to the east. Wanting to ride the elevator up the arch at the river. When we got there, the river was up over it's banks, so high, that the statue of Lewis and Clark only showed the head of one of them holding his hat high like he was summoning help in a flood. Quite humorous. Just needed a life ring to finish the set up.

Checked out the Arch and looked at the lines qued up at each end. We got into the shorter line and discovered after waiting 15 minutes that it was just like the airport (all belts came off, any cell phones, cameras and metal parts in the grey tub, and you have to go through a metal detector). So we asked how long a wait from here (we were at the doors), the Ranger said... Oh... about 2.5 hours yet before you get to ride up. We cancelled our plans for the arch right there. it was about 99 degrees again that day.

Wandered up the street, a lot of cardinal fans in the downtown area, so we followed them toward the stadium. Thought about buying a couple of tickets for the game, even though the scalper said the seats were in the shade, we opted not to sit for hours in the 99 degree temps.

One last stop since we were in St. Louis. Drove up the street to find the A-B Brewery. Seems that there are a lot of people who want to do things on a Saturday in St. Louis, crowds again waiting for the tour at the brewery. But, we got tickets quickly and only had to wait an hour in air conditioning. Pretty neat place, very old, very clean, well maintained and landscaped grounds. Chris must buy a lot of buddy lights to pay for this place.

Chris, we found out where Buddy Light comes from... I'll stick with Miller Lite.

Peace out. m&m

7-14-2010 Travel East

Not much scenery when you travel east away from the Rocky Mountains. We headed into Kansas. You're not in Colorado anymore Dorthy !
About the only thing of interest besides farm equipment and huge fields were more large groups of huge wind turbines on the north side of I-70. Maybe even more than in the groups in Iowa.
They all seem to be in areas of a few miles square, but they are all over the place in those spots.
Tommorrow, St. Louis, MO.
Peace Out... m&m

7-13-2010 GofG, Air Force Academy, Pikes Peak

First stop when we got to Colorado Springs was the Garden of the Gods, a very nice park with a short drive through. Lots of bicycles, horses and hikers.

From the Garden we went back north to the United States Air Force Acadamy. A very nice facility for the cadets. We got out and walked around the barracks areas adjacent to the chapel.

A view from inside.

After our drive through of the AFA, we headed down to Pikes Peak where we had reservations mid afternoon to ride the Cog Railroad all the way to the top, 14,110 feet elevation. What a view ! On a clear day you can see 5 states from up there. Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas & Nebraska. A 3 hour ride up and back. Marathon runners do this climb and descent in 2 hours and 45 minutes, and the champ race car driver did the ascent in 10 min. 1 sec.

No Damn Way ! On either alternate ! I'll take the train (MAC).

Peace Out all. m&m

7-12-2010 Denver

We wanted to get to the big city after so many days in the wilderness. Here is a pic of Denver.

One of the highlights of visiting Denver was the trip to the zoo. lots of large animals, the temp was quite high that day, it hit 99 degrees.

This big silverback came all the way across his environment to stand right in front of Melissa and I.We wandered downtown for a couple of hours, got some pics of Coors Field for the girls. We've been pretty lucky on this trip, seeing the animals at the right times while travleing, etc... today we got back to the car with 4 minutes left on the meter, after seeing several meter enforcement officers on their rounds downtown.

We tried to make a withdrawl, but the tour gate was closed when we arrived after our zoo tour.

So we left Denver without any extra cash, but some good pics from the Denver zoo and the baseball stadium.

Peace Out. m&m

7-11-2010 & 7-12-2010 Rocky Mtn Natl Park

Stayed in Dillon for a couple of days and relaxed, went to Avon to visit one of Melissa's old high school buddies. Had a great visit, we had not seen them on quite a few years.

When we left Dillon, we headed north to the Rocky Mountain National Park, took the drive through the park on a road called Trail Ridge Pass, up at 12,183 feet. Then down into Estes Park.

We saw some elk on the way up the pass.

View from somewhere around the top of the world here at the Trail Ridge Pass.

And low and behold, more elk on the hillside on the way into Estes Park.

When we got into Estes Park we had dinner with one of Mike's old high school buddies, had a great visit, then down the rest of the mountain in the dark into Longmont.

Tommorrow... Denver.

Peace Out. m&m

7-10 Dillon

Not much happening today. We rented two bikes and rode 14 miles from Vail Pass back to Frisco. It started out pretty nice, but then we got rained on twice. We followed this river all the way back into Frisco.
While on the trip we found there was a big bicycle race going the opposite way we were going on the trail. We were going the "right" way as most of ours was downhill. They were going UPHILL. This race was called the Triple Bypass because they race over three passes. One is the Loveland, the other is Vail, and I can't remember the third.

Not sure what these flowers are, but thought they were kind of neat.

We rode around downtown Frisco, stopped for a Latte to warm up (Mike doesn't do Latte's) and headed back to our hotel. We have an indoor and outdoor hot tub to go with the pool. We were cold so we jumped in the outdoor one to warm up. The sun came out and it was pretty nice for the rest of the afternoon.

Went to an outdoor concert in Dillon's outdoor amphitheatre. Great band, but then the wind and rain started up again. We left early as did many others. The lead singer in the band kept saying "If it ain't snowin', we ain't goin' ". They might still be there for all I know.

Peace out friends. m&m

7-9-2010 Vail

Stopped in Vail on the way by today, thought we would rub elbows with the rich and famous. But it seems the only thing there were tourists. It was pretty nice, they open the town up with free parking in their ramps and all the areas of town are pedestrian walkways. Kind of like Mackinaw Island, drawing in the crowds. Good sales on demo skis if you are interested in the really fat powder skis, not many Michigan skis for sale. Saw the CO Ski Hall of Fame, found Mels old skis boots & poles there. The sad thing was, I found the current bindings I ski on, in a MUSEUM. Pic of West Vail.



We decided to take a late afternoon gondola ride up to 9000 feet for dinner at the Eagles Nest at the top of the hill. There was a wedding taking place up top. They had lots of people up there, and plenty of free games for adults and kids, bungie trampolines, pony rides, horse shoes, highwire ropes 18" above the ground. Pic of the ski runs beyond the top of the gondola.


Trip back down showing the gondola, ski runs and valley looking north.

Peace Out. m&m

7-8-2010 Arches Natl Park & Colorado River Byway

Came up north in Utah to visit another red rock canyon at Arches National Park. This was neat because you can hike to the arches, not too far or to high for most of them, and climb around in them. We stopped in Moab to gas up prior to the park, lots of bike and raft shops here, the Colorado River runs through town, lots of adventure hikers, bikers and rafters in this town. Huge tourist draw, Gee... it seems we were drawn there also...

I have no idea how this rock stays up there, it's called balance rock.




The south arch at double arch.






If anyone ever wondered just how big the blades are on a wind turbine, the pic below does it some justice. Amazing when you consider that there are 3 of these on each wind turbine. Saw quite a few in transport in Utah, last huge batch of windmills we saw was in Iowa.




When we left Moab and Arches we took highway 128, a two lane that follows the Colorado River north. We had better scenery along this stretch of highway in variety and colors than we had all day in Zion. What a great drive, and fairly flat, as it followed the river almost all the way and we crossed it once. A great pic with the sun setting on the rock.






Mel got some great pics on this drive.





Peace Out. m&m

7-7-2010 Zion/Cedar Breaks - Sandstone Galore

We spent a couple of days in southern Utah, specifically to visit Zion Natl Park. Getting warm here, in the 90's. We are just 100+ miles from Vegas and the Grand Canyon, but the temps there are also 100+, so we decided not to visit those locales. Zion was impressive for the first 30 minutes, then it became one sandstone mountain after another. A lot of looking up from the bottom of the canyon.

Zion has a mandatory shuttle system. Vehicles are not allowed to drive through the park. While it's certainly understandable, as it limits the parking hassles, and all the other issues that go along with trying to get several thousand cars through the one road in the park, it is inconvienient. Everything you look at in Zion is overhead, and if you are STANDING on a packed shuttle bus, you don't see anything except the trees going past the windows as you drive along. It's great if you get off and do some hiking and get back on the next shuttle, which is really what is expected. But we took only one hike as it was HOT. It's the best system for the park and it works if you have a seat since you would be able to see all the scenery. But standing doesn't work so well... Lesson learned.

After dinner we decided to visit Cedar Breaks, a national monument just 20 miles from our hotel. Thought the sunset would be good on the rocks. We found out it was not the easiest 20 mile drive. Uphill (just one way), to an elevation of 10,335' and looking down into a 2800' canyon of sandstone. A couple of outlooks along the west side of the drive up afforded a view west of 50 to 100 miles. When we got to the breaks we were looking north and could see the same distance there. Pretty darn close to the top of the world. (Melissa's add - the young park ranger at Zion told us about this park and "amphitheater". He said it was very cool and we should go. As we are driving up the scariest road we've been on the entire trip (makes Beartooth look like a kiddie ride), Mike said, "this better be worth it, or I'm personally going to go back to Zion and kick that little rangers butt!" It definitely was! Mike did an awesome job navagating the road. I could tell it was a little stressful for him.)

Looking North at Cedar Breaks.

Peace Out. On our way to Moab, UT & western CO. m&m

7-6-2010 More travel, Idaho to Utah

Good highways, expressway all the way today. 75 mph, with two test areas of 80 mph speed limits. Lots of highway patrol. Headed out of Idaho Falls this morning headed for southern Utah, not much to show. Went through Salt Lake on the way down. Not much to report.


Bryce Canyon and Zion tomorrow. See you, m&m.

7-5-2010 Grand Tetons

Hi Folks, today was a road trip day, south from West Yellowstone, though the Grand Teton National Park.

Fantastic Scenery, maybe better than some earlier days, the Tetons are great !

We came upon this critter just before we got out of the Teton park. 50 yards from Mel's camera.

What a great last shot on the way out of the wilderness. Mel is such a good nature photographer, you should see her pics of the wild flowers. She captured an Osprey pulling a fish out of the river, 50 feet away from us at the hot springs. You can see it on facebook.

Peace out, m&m.