We're back! Our trip led us to the south-eastern corner of beautiful Colorado. On the way we experienced bitter cold winds in Amarillo, just above freezing daytime, freezing at night - donned padded jacket there. Bright, cool and lovely in Walsenburg CO; temperatures heated up to high 80s by Garden City KS and southward, home, bringing attire down to short sleeve weather - still windy though.
For larger, clearer images please click on photographs.
Above: view from supermarket car park in Walsenburg, Colorado. Below: from another angle, without the incongruous inclusion!
We drove The Highway of Legends from Walsenburg - gorgeous weather, some amazing scenery. Also HERE.
Right by that amazing rock wall (which stretched further than we could see due to trees) was the entrance (below) to a World War II German Officers' prison camp. Dang - but they treated 'em well didn't they? At least it'd be difficult to escape though - unless they had a Steve McQueen type resident!
We opted to travel back east on a route we'd never taken before when in this part of the country. A long straight-ish road along the bottom of south-eastern Colorado - H'way 160. Considering there'd be little in the way of civilised pee-stops, we tried not to over-hydrate. It was with great relief that around half way along the seemingly never-ending highway we came upon the small outpost store below - complete with loo/restroom. Ah! Blessed relief!
Not long after a stop at the Kim Outpost we found a memorial, of sorts, to a former town/settlement: Andrix. On the wall of the one remaining building is scrawled "Andrix, gone but not forgotten"
Reflecting on the early settlers are photographer and yours truly:
We crossed into Kansas to stay overnight in Garden City (from the scent on the wind next morning, blowing off the several feed lots in the area, the name might rather be Garden Shitty (and I bet I'm not the first to have said this!)
Onward through south-west Kansas and eventually north-western Oklahoma. There was quite a lot of this - and, by now many bugs on windscreen and front bumper. The car looked as though we'd travelled through some far flung jungle by the time we reached home. We were well in front of a storm line forecast to hit our region on Sunday, which did in fact result in a tornado warning for our town and county, Sunday evening, but we missed all but the thunder.
John Denver sang us in, and sings us out. I miss John Denver, still. I shall miss Jonathan Cainer for ever - and only now do I allow myself to weep.
For larger, clearer images please click on photographs.
Above: view from supermarket car park in Walsenburg, Colorado. Below: from another angle, without the incongruous inclusion!
We drove The Highway of Legends from Walsenburg - gorgeous weather, some amazing scenery. Also HERE.
Right by that amazing rock wall (which stretched further than we could see due to trees) was the entrance (below) to a World War II German Officers' prison camp. Dang - but they treated 'em well didn't they? At least it'd be difficult to escape though - unless they had a Steve McQueen type resident!
We opted to travel back east on a route we'd never taken before when in this part of the country. A long straight-ish road along the bottom of south-eastern Colorado - H'way 160. Considering there'd be little in the way of civilised pee-stops, we tried not to over-hydrate. It was with great relief that around half way along the seemingly never-ending highway we came upon the small outpost store below - complete with loo/restroom. Ah! Blessed relief!
Not long after a stop at the Kim Outpost we found a memorial, of sorts, to a former town/settlement: Andrix. On the wall of the one remaining building is scrawled "Andrix, gone but not forgotten"
We crossed into Kansas to stay overnight in Garden City (from the scent on the wind next morning, blowing off the several feed lots in the area, the name might rather be Garden Shitty (and I bet I'm not the first to have said this!)
Onward through south-west Kansas and eventually north-western Oklahoma. There was quite a lot of this - and, by now many bugs on windscreen and front bumper. The car looked as though we'd travelled through some far flung jungle by the time we reached home. We were well in front of a storm line forecast to hit our region on Sunday, which did in fact result in a tornado warning for our town and county, Sunday evening, but we missed all but the thunder.
John Denver sang us in, and sings us out. I miss John Denver, still. I shall miss Jonathan Cainer for ever - and only now do I allow myself to weep.
8 comments:
I'm glad you had a good trip and arrived home safely. Yes, I too miss John Denver. He loved life, and his was all too short.
Good ol' Colorado! I used to live in Boulder, north of Denver along the Flatirons leading into the mountains. A very special place for me. I grew-up in KS, which for the most, is much like the road you took returning to OK...flat and barren. Colorado is a vast contrast to KS.
When I relocated to California, the week prior to leaving CO the Denver Post ran an article about the inherent earthquake potential of the Rockies. The Rockies were built from seismic uplift. Colorado was long overdue for a large quake. Most of the structures in CO are not built with quakes in mind and so many are very old, brick or sandstone. The last biggy in CO was around 1880.
I wondered whether you would make it back home before the weather changed...figured you were being weather savvy. Last night's national news was full of weather-related disasters from Colorado through the plains. Same front is providing showers for us this morning, which we truly need.
I trust that his road trip brought you and anyjazz closer together on your 12th anniversary than you could possibly imagine.
BTW - I started season two of "Grace and Frankie"...viewed two episodes, but I think I'll leave it at that. Season one wasn't that grand and season two is a downgrade from that.
RJ Adams ~ Thanks RJ. :-)
mike ~ Colorado is one of my favourites, we hadn't visited the state for several years. We've "done" most areas, including 10 days in Estes Park near Rocky Mountain National Park; and a trip including Crested Butte, Gunnison and surrounding area; San Luis Valley and Mesa Verde. Had intended to go to Manitou Springs a couple of years ago, but something stopped us. This time we barely peeped into the state, but I'm glad we did. We'd originally planned to stay in Raton NM or Trinidad CO, but the decent hotels in both were in really awkward situations, so we carried on up the road to Walsenburg - not a tourist trap at all, but expanding it seems, from several brand new hotel chains' presence there.
We had some rain (or sounded like hail) and thunder early this morning- didn't get up to look.
Yes, thank you - we enjoyed out 12th anniversary togetherness trip very much.:-)
We watched the first season of "Grace and Frankie" - Anyjazz liked it - I wasn't as keen, but it was alright, I guess. We're still working on "Foyle's War" 90 min. long episodes. Found a new time travel indie movie last night too: "Paradox". Reasonably good idea for a story, I guess, if well done, but dialogue was pathetic at times - seemed as though a group of teenagers' had written it (maybe they had!)
Have you watched "Time Lapse"? I may indulge that one. It's a time travel tale, too...maybe similar to "Primer", which I liked (and I think you commented that you watched, too), though it was difficult to determine which set of men...past, present, or future selves...was which by the end, and which set out-foxed the other.
mike (again) ~ Ah yes - we did see "Time Lapse" - had to look at Wikipedia to remind myself of the plot. It's interesting. Not exactly time travel in the way we usually think of it as portrayed in films. Definitely worth a look.
Yes we've seen "Primer" - seen it twice, once on a rented DVD a few years ago, and once on Netflix more recently. Strange thing - I remembered the DVD version to have been different in a few places (or maybe my memory was a bit off!) Anyjazz also recalled a couple of scenes which weren't there on Netflix too. Maybe there has been some editing going on since original DVD was released. I was thoroughly confused by the Netflix version, but was a little more into the DVD one if I recall it correctly. Again, it was a good idea but needed a much bigger budget and more helpful script/production detail (same could be said about many movies now though).
Better do some chants and incantations, maybe sacrifice a grilled cheese sandwich, to appease the tornado gods of Oklahoma! South of Oklahoma City looked pretty bad on the national news this evening. A couple of extra cocktails may be in order.
mike (again) ~ Hmmm - we were unaware there was any stormy stuff going on tonight - must have been all a good way north of us. Our "excitement" was yesterday evening, but we were on the edge of it then too. Oh joy - it's THAT time again! Any excuse for extra cocktails can't be all bad though. :-)
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