Sat, Sep 8 - Estes Park & Rocky Mt Nat'l Park

We decided to leave Colorado Springs a day early--mistake. I forgot that the Scottish/Irish Highland Festival was going on in Estes Park till Sunday and that is why I had planned for us to arrive there on Sunday after they had ended! This picture shows the 8-mile backup going down into Estes Park. Oh well, it was another good chance to make sandwiches for lunch and eat them as we crept along. We are now camped at Elk Meadows on the other side of town from the festival and just outside the entrance to the Park.



About 5:00, we decided to stop at the visitor center for the Park and get a map and talk to a ranger about good places to go. He suggested that we drive into the park where the elk were known to be and see if we could catch a bull elk bugling. We did find two groups of cows and calves, but only one group had a bull elk herding them around in a group. Didn't get to hear him bugle, but it was fun to watch him keep them in a circle every time one would wander off.

I did spy (with binoculars) a coyote crouching down in the grass off in the distance watching one group of cows.

http://www.elkmeadowrv.com/ Elk Meadows RV Park website

Rocky Mt National Park websites:

http://www.rocky.mountain.national-park.com/

http://www.rmnp.com/

http://www.nps.gov/romo/

Estes Park websites:

http://www.estes21.com/ http://www.estespark.us/Index.HTML

http://www.estesparkcvb.com/

http://www.rvparksusa.com/co/co-elk.htm

Ute Indian History: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ute_Tribe

Fri, Sep 7th – Royal Gorge Train, Canon, CO

Santa Fe Royal Gorge Train--wasn't it a gorgeous day!

This was our dome car where we had a gourmet 3-course lunch with a view.

Here we are waiting to depart. All aboard!

And here was our main course--pork osso.

After lunch, we went out on the open air car to take pictures of the gorge, the rafters and the Royal Gorge Bridge

There were lots of white-water rafters going down the Arkansas River rapids!

After our train ride, we drove back to the campground thru open-range cattle ranches and then down to Cripple Creek. I didn't realize that Cripple Creek had so many Casinos! I'd rather bet on the horses, so no, I didn't loose any money in the slots!

www.royalgorgebridge.com

Thu, Sep 6th - Garden of the Gods Visitor Center, Wal-Mart & Camping World

We decided to drive back thru the Garden of the Gods early this a.m. to get different pictures of the red rocks. We went to the Visitor Center too and saw a film about how the Rocky Mountains were formed. Very interesting.

I needed to get a prescription refilled, so we headed into town to the Wal-Mart. After dropping it off, we went to a drive-in Sonic for lunch where you place your order at your car and they bring it out to you. Chuck had a burger with green chiles on it! Because we needed to kill some time before picking up my prescription, we headed to a nearby Camping World to see what was new. This Camping World also sold RVs. We walked thru a few neat ones—Damon Tuscany! Wow! See http://www.damonrv.com/motorhomes/tuscany/ . No we’re not interested. Just looking.

http://www.gardenofgods.com/home/index.cfm?flash=1 Garden of the Gods website

Wed, Sep 5th – Pikes Peak and Garden of the Gods

We got an early start this morning and had a sunny, blue sky drive up the Pikes Peak road. What a drive with “W” turns at the top where there were no trees and NO guard rails! (See photo.) We took LOTS of pictures all the way up. Remember, this is our first day of seeing Colorado “rocks”. We reached the top about 10:40 a.m., a 19-mile climb, 14,110 ft above sea level (2-1/2 miles high), 43 deg F, with 53.6% available oxygen! No wonder we felt dizzy and light headed. We took more pictures at the top, waiting for the Cog railway to leave at 11:20 and the cafeteria to clear out before we got lunch. We were glad we did our picture taking before lunch because after we had sleet and pea-sized hail! This continued until we got down to mile 13 where there was a Brake Check Booth. Our brakes registered 267 deg F; if you register close to 300 degrees F, you have to pull off to cool your brakes for 20 to 30 minutes. We stopped any way and went into the gift shop. The sky opened with thunder and lightning and hail (see Photo). The ground turned white and then it rained so hard that it washed it all away.

When we got back to the campground, the sun was shining, so we decided to drive thru the Garden of the Gods and take pictures of the red rocks as the sun was going down. We spent a short time in the Trading Post where Chuck got a new leather black hat with a wide brim to keep the sun off his face and neck. It is very dry here, but the sun is intense!

For the grandkids: In 1892, Katharine Lee Bates, a teacher from Massachusetts, wrote the words to what later became the song "America the Beautiful". Where was she and what inspired her to write these words?

Pikes Peak, Colorado Springs, CO; the view was so magnificent that she wrote about what she saw.

http://www.pikespeakcolorado.com/?refer=pikespeak

Tue, Sep 4th – Goodland, KS to Garden of the Gods Campground, Colorado Springs, CO

It’s been a little warm dry camping at Wal-Marts especially at bedtime, but Chuck’s homemade 12-V fan with 3-hr timer on it has worked great for getting to sleep--though we reach for the covers as the temperatures drop during the night. The head wind continued today as we drove what is referred to as the “high plains”. We passed an area of cute little prairie dogs, saw UPS trucks towing THREE trailers, and saw 75-mph speed limit signs. Shortly after crossing the Colorado border, the altimeter on Chuck’s watch indicated that we were a MILE HIGH! Soon after, we got our first glimpse of Pikes Peak. We pulled into the campground about 1:00. I took advantage of having a laundry across the street and Chuck got us all set up on the internet. Now maybe I can catch up with this blog!

Mon, Sep 3rd – Westward Ho to the Wal-Mart, Goodland, KS

(Mountain Time--We gained another hour today.) We left the Wal-Mart in Lawrence about 7:00 a.m. today and headed west on Rt 10 up to I70 and then westward. What a great roadway! I70 is a very straight road with a gradual increase in altitude. We picked up a head wind about half way to Goodland and our fuel mileage dropped! Saw lots of Milo or Head Feed crops along the highway that went on for miles! (See pic.) We passed a big Russell-Stover Plant and noted on the map that there is a Russell, KS located near by.

For the grandkids: What President was born in Kansas?

Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Sun, Sep 2nd –Westward Ho to the Wal-Mart, Lawrence, KS

We left the Hellrungs this morning about 7:00 a.m. and drove over the beautiful Clark Bridge into Missouri. (See photo) The view today along I70 thru Missouri was rolling farmland where some of the corn was already harvested, many XXX Adult stores along the interstate; many billboards about babies, like a picture of a baby with chocolate all over his hands and face that said, “Babies Make Messes, Parents Please have Patience”; small towns all along the way that the interstate went thru like Warrenton and Columbia; many cities have the same names as cities in Virginia (Danville, Stanton, Warrenton, Springfield, Washington) and we crossed the Missouri River 3 times. I doubled checked my Tolson genealogy on the computer and as I remembered that some of the Tolsons migrated to Howard, MO, which is just north of I70 about in the middle of the state near Booneville. The only real traffic we had was when we got to Independence and Kansas City, MO almost into Kansas. Hey, Toto, we ARE in Kansas now!