Just a few miles down the freeway from the KS hotel, I passed an overturned semi with its contents strewn along the side of the road. People were trying to pick up everything and clean it up. The cab of the truck looked totaled. About ten minutes later, I came across another semi in a similar situation, again with lots of people trying to help pick up the mess. I don't know what happened to the truckers. I'm guessing they were on the road when that storm hit and the accidents were a result of that. The rest of the drive through KS was uneventful, hot, and very boring, broken only by billboards advertising Jesus, anti-abortion slogans, and the rightness of guns. How many people understand the ironies inherent in that? I cheered when I crossed the border into CO. I pulled into the Welcome Center/rest area only to find that it was closed. The note on the door said they had lost power in a storm the previous night and would not open until the power came back on. It also said that the entire area there had lost power, and travelers should keep driving further up the highway to find anything open.
CO is much like KS until you get very close to Denver. However, there are a lot more hills - it isn't flat like KS _ and the vegetation changes. The grass looks more like what you might find in the Sonoran Desert (though a lot more of it). I saw an actual tumbleweed roll across the highway. The mountains were just large mounds of clouds on the horizon until I was about half an hour out of Denver. Then the Rockies came into view. They are gorgeous, even from a distance. Denver was like any large city, but I soon passed through it and headed into the mountains. An interesting side note: If you have seen the TV show Last Man Standing, the main character works at Outdoor World in Denver, CO. That store really exists. It looks exactly the way they show it on the TV show (which I have only watched a few times because the characters are irritating, but I still thought it was kind of fun to see it.)
I headed up into the mountains. The Rockies are beautiful and well worth the trip. The campgrounds were almost full, but I did manage to get a spot. It turns out that it is wisest to make a reservation. That evening one of the rangers gave a presentation/program in the little ampitheater in the campground. He talked about Alpine flora and fauna - the Rockies are almost all Alpine areas, which is the main reason they are preserved under the Wilderness Act. The presentation was geared more toward kids, who were having a great time. It reminded me of the programs the rangers gave in the national parks my family visited when I was a kid.
That night the temperature dropped to 34 degrees F. I ended up sleeping in the back of my minivan again. This morning I could barely walk. My back does not like so much driving and sleeping on that cot, I guess. My left thigh is numb on the outer left half and painful to use. I went hiking on one of the trails a little north of the Moraine campground, hoping that would help. It did. I drove around the park more and did small hikes in various places, taking lots of photos that I don't have the time or electricity right now to post. I found out that there is serious construction on the main road in and out of the mountains. I missed it yesterday going in because it was Sunday. I was warned it would take about three times as long to get back to Denver, so I decided to do that part of the trip today instead of adding on more time to my travel time to Las Vegas (to see my niece). I waited over half an hour in one section while traffic backed up terribly and we waited for the construction crews to stop breaking rock and let us pass. That happened twice, then there was a serious slow down for awhile. I finally took the turn toward Boulder instead of Denver so I wouldn't have to deal with that anymore. So here I am in Boulder, by accident (it was pretty close.) It is a cute university town. There are no campgrounds that I could find, however, so I ended up having to get a hotel room, which might be just as well considering how bad my back and hips are today. The hotel does not have free internet access though, which is really annoying. It's not cheap, either, but was the fifth place I tried - all the others were filled up or much too expensive. So I'm writing this at an interesting little coffee shop that makes a very good chai tea - even you, Hetal Thaker, would like it!
CO is much like KS until you get very close to Denver. However, there are a lot more hills - it isn't flat like KS _ and the vegetation changes. The grass looks more like what you might find in the Sonoran Desert (though a lot more of it). I saw an actual tumbleweed roll across the highway. The mountains were just large mounds of clouds on the horizon until I was about half an hour out of Denver. Then the Rockies came into view. They are gorgeous, even from a distance. Denver was like any large city, but I soon passed through it and headed into the mountains. An interesting side note: If you have seen the TV show Last Man Standing, the main character works at Outdoor World in Denver, CO. That store really exists. It looks exactly the way they show it on the TV show (which I have only watched a few times because the characters are irritating, but I still thought it was kind of fun to see it.)
I headed up into the mountains. The Rockies are beautiful and well worth the trip. The campgrounds were almost full, but I did manage to get a spot. It turns out that it is wisest to make a reservation. That evening one of the rangers gave a presentation/program in the little ampitheater in the campground. He talked about Alpine flora and fauna - the Rockies are almost all Alpine areas, which is the main reason they are preserved under the Wilderness Act. The presentation was geared more toward kids, who were having a great time. It reminded me of the programs the rangers gave in the national parks my family visited when I was a kid.
That night the temperature dropped to 34 degrees F. I ended up sleeping in the back of my minivan again. This morning I could barely walk. My back does not like so much driving and sleeping on that cot, I guess. My left thigh is numb on the outer left half and painful to use. I went hiking on one of the trails a little north of the Moraine campground, hoping that would help. It did. I drove around the park more and did small hikes in various places, taking lots of photos that I don't have the time or electricity right now to post. I found out that there is serious construction on the main road in and out of the mountains. I missed it yesterday going in because it was Sunday. I was warned it would take about three times as long to get back to Denver, so I decided to do that part of the trip today instead of adding on more time to my travel time to Las Vegas (to see my niece). I waited over half an hour in one section while traffic backed up terribly and we waited for the construction crews to stop breaking rock and let us pass. That happened twice, then there was a serious slow down for awhile. I finally took the turn toward Boulder instead of Denver so I wouldn't have to deal with that anymore. So here I am in Boulder, by accident (it was pretty close.) It is a cute university town. There are no campgrounds that I could find, however, so I ended up having to get a hotel room, which might be just as well considering how bad my back and hips are today. The hotel does not have free internet access though, which is really annoying. It's not cheap, either, but was the fifth place I tried - all the others were filled up or much too expensive. So I'm writing this at an interesting little coffee shop that makes a very good chai tea - even you, Hetal Thaker, would like it!