Rocky Mountain National Park

 Penny had been here as a dour teen.  One of the things she remembered was that every time they crossed the Continental Divide, and they crossed it several times, her mother made a big deal out of it.  She silently groaned every time.  

 We were, of course, a little ahead of tourist season.  That had its advantages in that there was little traffic on the roads.  Note the height of the snow poles through this rock cut.

 There were, however, disadvantages.  This sign, at one of the visitors' centers, indicates that the flush toilets here did not work because the pipes were still frozen.  It's worth noting that the elevation of this center was 11,796 feet, 547 feet higher than the tip of Mt. Hood.

 We live in a very scenic place, but this area has its own, very different brand of beauty.  This pretty little lake was in a small draw at an elevation of over 10,000 feet.

 The geology was equally spectacular and interesting.  Look at the multiple lava flow layers on this dome.

 Glaciers, snow caps, and high alpine meadows abounded. 

 These lava cliffs are home to the highest known nesting pair of prairie falcons.

 One of them emerged and swooped over us as we stood there taking in the scenery.

 If the scenery and geology weren't enough, the place abounded with wildlife.  This Clark's nutcracker posed for us at one of the pullouts.

 As did this mountain bluebird.

 Elk grazed in the alpine meadows.  These elk aren't as burly and well fed looking as those we usually see in the Pacific Northwest, but the conditions they have to endure during the winter are far more harsh.  In this area, snow pack can easily exceed thirty feet, and winter winds routinely top one hundred miles per hour.

 This marmot posed for us at another pullout.

 Lovely flowers, like this snow gentian, abounded in alpine meadows.  Because of the harsh climate and short growing season here, plants may require several years of growth before they can gather enough energy to flower.  One of the rangers at a visitor center told us of one in particular that had been watched for twenty five years before its first, and last, bloom.  She was horrified every time she saw a tourist bring in a flower that they had picked.

 The yellow of this alpine buttercup provides a pretty counterpoint to the neighboring stonecrop as they compete for the attention of the pollinators that are scarce at this altitude.

The size of these delicate little forget-me-nots belies the intensity of their fragrance. 

George Carlin once said, "Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the number of moments that take your breath away."

This is one of those places that has enhanced the measure of our lives.

Estes Park

 After leaving Illinois, we turned back west.  Our first stop, other than overnights in Des Moines and North Platte, was Estes Park, Colorado and Rocky Mountain National Park.  Penny had been here before, but although Ted had been in the Rockies several times, it was usually on business, so he looked forward to being a tourist.  After a winding drive on U.S. 34, a narrow two lane road, we had to navigate through downtown Estes Park to get to our RV park.  

 Most of the spaces in the RV park were unoccupied except by these little critters.  They were obviously used to getting handouts.  They quickly discovered that we were not going to feed them, so they mostly ignored us. 

 The park was nothing special except for this; the view through our windshield.

 Soon after we arrived, the clouds started coming in.  Fearing that they would obscure our views from the higher elevations, we decided to take a day to relax and wander through Estes Park.

 The lovely Fall River ran through downtown filling the area with the soothing sound of running water.  The town has made this river a feature with lots of rest areas along the banks.

 Most of downtown Estes Park was very touristy, and several of the shops were filled with disappointing schlock, but there were a few points of interest.  At the west end of downtown was this carillon.  On the hour, the doors opened and the area above the clock rotated telling the story of the area.

This is the famous Stanley Hotel.  It was built by Freelan Oscar Stanley, one of the most innovative of American entrepreneurs.  He and his brother, Francis, founded the company that built the Stanley Steamer after selling the rights to their photographic dry plate business to Eastman Kodak.  It was Stephen King's stay here that inspired him to write The Shining.  Parts of the mini-series version were filmed in this hotel, but the more famous Stanley Kubrick film version was filmed at the Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood, OR, which we see from our house.

After exploring Estes Park, we returned to our coach, enjoyed the cool weather, watched as the sun set, and prepared for the next day's trip into the mountains.  

Families

 It seemed to us that the scenery improved almost as soon as we crossed the border from Kansas to Oklahoma.

 Ted grew up in Bixby, Oklahoma, a small town that was, at the time, about 17 miles southeast of Tulsa.  Today, you can't tell where Tulsa ends and Bixby begins.

 Ted's grandfather had a restaurant in the two story gray building in the early 1900s.  Much of his family still lives near-by.  The red building just down the block is the home of a cousin and her husband.

 Our friends Walt and Cleone (whom Ted has known since he was in the third grade) own this building.  They are also avid RVers, and generously built this slab with complete RV service for the convenience of their visiting RV friends.  We thoroughly enjoy their company.  The "Happy Hours" with them while we were here were a real treat. 

Ted and Penny traveled with Ted's cousin Colleen (second from the left) to Oklahoma City to visit with yet more cousins: Larry and his wife Michele, and Larry's parents Dee and Dorothy.  Sorry about the Thunder, Michele, we were pulling for them, too.

Bixby is a neat town, and is in a pretty area of Oklahoma, but it was warmer than these two wimpy North-westerners are accustomed to any more.  Our coach air conditioners ran the entire time we were there.  The sunsets through Walt and Cleone's trees were, however, beautiful. 

From Oklahoma, we drove to Illinois for a reunion with Penny's family.  We both enjoyed ourselves.  Here, we are gathered at Jim and Lettie's lovely log house on a hill looking down into the historic Sangamon River, not far from Springfield, and even closer to Petersburg, Illinois, once home to Ann Rutledge, Abraham Lincoln, and Edgar Lee Masters, author of Spoon River Anthology.  The latter two are buried there.  The history of this area makes it a must visit.  We visited the Lincoln Museum for the second time with several cousins.  It is an amazing presentation of Lincoln's life.

We are very fortunate to have families that we both enjoy and appreciate.  It makes visits with them something we both look forward to.

And then, there was Kansas

 We tried, we really did.  We talked about the very impactful history of Kansas.

 We spoke of our admiration for the farmers who feed our nation.  Ted enjoyed seeing the well managed wheat fields. . . . for a while.

 We even began to welcome construction sites such as this one.  Those piles with the dust blowing off of them are the concrete that was chipped up from the two lanes to the left.  But try as we might, Kansas was very wide and very boring!

 We stopped a nice, clean little RV park near Oakley, Kansas.  We might have appreciated it more had we known this would be the last time, for several days, we could have the coach opened up. 

At our final RV park in Kansas at Wichita, we had this stark reminder of the kind of country we were in.

Breckenridge and East out of Colorado

 As we continued east from Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, Breckenridge, Colorado was our first overnight stop.  Ted had been here on business before and thoroughly enjoyed the area.  The town was originally named Breckinridge, after the then Vice-President of the United States, in hopes that the flattery would result in chartering a post office.  It worked.  It was renamed by simply changing an i to an e when Breckinridge became a proslavery democratic presidential candidate  in the very convoluted election of 1860 and accepted a commission as a Brigadier General for the Confederacy.

 Breckenridge became wealthy due to placer (panning) and hard rock gold discoveries.  Of course, most of the gold it mines now comes from the pockets of tourists.

 Snow poles are nothing new in ski resort country, but look at how high this fire hydrant is set above ground level.  The tip of this snow pole is an easy ten feet above ground.  There were snow poles on every sewer hook-up, too.  The golf course next to  this park is where Ted had his last corporate golf outing, all one hole of it before the lightening started.

 This the Barney Ford House, just off of downtown Breckenridge.  It is now a museum and has a huge yard.  Barney Ford was the son of a Virginia slave.  He escaped via the underground railroad to become a prominent businessman, civic leader, and mine owner with interests throughout much of Colorado.

 Breckenridge has a vital arts community.  The Fuqua Livery Stable has been repurposed into an arts and artisan's workshop.  The beginning metalsmithing program currently running had Ted drooling.    

 Several sculptures, such as these two pack donkeys adorn the downtown area.

 One of the great things about being able to travel during the off season is easy access to restaurants and other shops.  We were the only customers at this restaurant, the "Fiesta Jalisco".  Penny's shrimp salad tasted as good as it looks.

 As we continued east out of the front range we passed by cute small towns such as Silverthorne, Colorado, the most populous city in Summit County, Colorado.

 We traveled through Denver and

onto the flatlands toward Kansas.  All through this leg of the trip, we found miles of Interstate 80 completely removed and in the process of being repaved.  This was seldom much of an issue for us since we were usually one of the slower vehicles out there, but we felt sorry for the travelers who were on any kind of a schedule.