anything I ever did in school - I looked, and paged backward and
forward and scribbled and plotted and then we sucked in our sides and
scooted through that thin slot between Cheyenne and Denver! Yup - it
took some little roads and more farmlands but boy it was good to scoot
down the middle of them both! Sorry Gloria - but nope - no way with a
wheelie house in Denver - I did wave in your general direction which
was on my right for much of this morning! We had planned to head
south to Texas to surprise Bea there, but Hurricane Ike decided to
come that way, which put a stop to that and any potential beach walks
we might have been thinking about. So now we find ourselves on roads
we had not been on before which is good.
We have been doing some country road riding and some interstate
cruising and I have discovered that both of them are interesting in
their own way. Even though the welcome board to Colorado says
"Welcome to Colorful Colorado", its not really all that colorful - not
where we were driving, but what is lacking in the countryside is made
up in the color of the trucks, trains and billboards. The countryside
rolls easy here and its very gentle and inviting. There are fields
with little yellow flowers sprinkled in them and the sunflowers are
always a surprise.... We drive along and see a yellow tinge in the
fields, then the road takes you around the corner and boom! there is
a brilliant, canary (or should I say sunflower?) yellow carpet for as
far as you can see! All the sunflowers were bowing eastward this
morning and as the sun headed overhead, it literally lit up the fields
as all the flower heads lifted upwards. And in quite a few places
there was a red ground covering that glistened in the sunlight. On
many of the huge roadside rocks there was a definite green on them -
it seemed to be more than moss and almost looked like paint, but we
knew it was not. Some of the hills had little fluffy plants growing
on them that glistened in the sun and at times seemed to be almost
white and other times, yellow. Ok - so now I see - it really IS
Colorful Colorado! Hmmm, that was interesting...
Its strange to see gates on the interstates that can be closed if
there is snow on the road or other dangerous conditions, I guess. Its
not something we have around Chattanooga at all. All along these
highways there are houses, or trailers, in places that make us wonder
why there? Most often they are not lonely little houses but rather
almost surrounded with many, many dead cars, rv's farm equipment and
an incredible array of what looks to be rusting junk. And there are
many of these places! Some rather nice looking houses have farm
equipment just parked in their yards, seeming with no design or
pattern, just as if they had gone that far and were going to be there
till they were also just a little pile of rusted dust.
We drove through one area that was obviously an upper class area and
all the houses on the hill were the same dull brown. I bet that was
to try to blend the houses with the hill, but it just made me think of
dog poop on the hill! See the picture........ Sometimes trying too
hard to blend in just does not work and this is definitely one of
those times. And then we went over another Continental Divide at 7000
feet. There are lots of wind fences around here and in some places
the wind fence wood was obviously taken down and used to fix the
ordinary fences..
There are big black bugs all over here and they smash dramatically
into the windshield leaving a very unpleasant mess that just refuses
to get cleaned off with water and the wipers. We stopped at a gas
station and Frank cleaned all the windows, but a mere two miles down
the road - it was a mess again. I could no longer dodge the splats on
the glass and you will see many of the photos have the
evidence.......... Ah well - its all part of the story.
First thing this morning as we headed out, Blondie (who is being given
her 7th chance now!) told us to turn right..... "Does she mean it? Is
she right?" says Frank? Yessssssss! She got it right! And she was
really good all day long - but then its not too difficult to go badly
wrong on a really straight road! We drove through the town of Fort
Collins, Colorado and found gas at 'only' $3.46/gal so quickly filled
up. That is a lovely little town - gorgeous old houses - just gentle
and a nice feeling. Well, for the main part. Right outside of town
there was a big wall around a new sub-division with a huuuuge banner
advertising that this was an "Active Adult Community". Well, that
started a long conversation that took up a few miles and caused a good
few laughs and we both decided that we would not want to live behind
an advertisement like that :)
Oh yes, I keep forgetting - what with all the driving through the
wheat fields, we did not see any crop circles - but we did see crop
squares!! Yup - and I even got pictures! And they are in the album.
There were lots of really long trains snaking through the hillsides
and some of the artwork on the sides is beautiful and most definitely
colorful. And then at one place we drove past a sheep farm. This
type of sheep farm I had never seen nor smelled before. It stank so
badly that it took about 10 miles before it all blew out of the rv!
These sheep were not roaming the gentle hillsides - they were all
penned inside fences, standing and lying around in some seriously deep
brown muck that I don't even know what to call it! That stink was
much, much worse than the many dead skunks we have driven past. We
learned really quickly on our first trip to never ever ever drive over
a dead skunk - always drive a-r-o-u-n-d it, then it only takes a few
minutes till you can breathe again. If your wheels touch it - you
will not like yourself for many many miles..... But that sheep farm
was almost worse than that!
And just a last thought for this time............. all these oil wells
pumping out here? I would have to paint mine if I had one on my farm
- paint it like a toucan, a rabbit, a woodpecker - give us poor, half
bored tourists driving past something to look at! Actually, its quite
amazing just how much there is to see along the way and each evening
when I download the photos onto the computer, I am surprised at just
how many photographs I have taken in a day that seemed to go on
forever without much to see and its fun going through them to see
which ones actually worked well.
So here we are again, level, with all the hookups we need, the wind
howling outside and lovely and cool inside. And its my bedtime.
Another good day.
Love and light
Annie
Picture link: http://photobucket.com/annieb
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