Day 25 of Western Adventures (Central Indiana)

We repack the car for the last time on this trip.  This was stay # 21 and the guys are pros at this, but they are sick of it and ready to be home. It is Sunday, but we have a hard time knowing what day it is, much less the date.  The drive today is a short one as we motor across Illinois and into Indiana. We change time once more and the last of our trip.  Of course, Jerry has “Back Home Again in Indiana” on his hard drive and we play it over and over again as we entered our home state.  He also had the “Hail Purdue” song and we loved singing that one over and over, too.

   Our co-pilotsBob was the bookkeeper.   One last Mc D stop for coffee

He and Jerry alternated who filled the gas tank.  We purchased 389.25 gallons of gas at an average cost of $ 3.93/gallon and a total cost of  $1530.44 for our gas.  We drove 7,629 miles from Jerry’s brother, Fred’s in Muncie and back to Fred’s.  We each have over 400 miles yet to travel back to Maggie Valley and Cheboygan.

 

 

                We don’t seem to be any worse for the trip .This is the first night ( in nearly 4 weeks) that  we don’t have to pick a place to sleep or decide where to eat. We all have less than 2 weeks to regroup and recover before we are back in Indiana at Purdue for Homecoming and the 60th Anniversary for Twin Pines Co-op where Lydia and Joyce were roommates. ( 50 years ago)  We all laugh at what we think “old” is, and we can’t seem to grasp that we are old enough to have known each other for over 50 years.  Joyce joked that we can fast forward 10 years, and we will all be at University Place in West Lafayette waiting on the bus to take us to the Purdue Homecoming game!  We can only hope for good health 10 years from now so this could be a reality.

Day 22 of Western Adventures ( Part B Pikes Peak)

      

 

We stopped in Breckenridge, looking for McDonald’s coffee and never found any….actually found no chain restaurants. The town looks very different in the fall than it does in the winter with all the snow, the skiers and the shops all open.

 

From Breckenridge, we headed out southeast through the valley and toward Pikes Peak area.  At times, we thought we were back in Montana or Wyoming as the land stretched forever until it hit up against the mountain range. We crossed the Continental Divide at Hoosier Pass (11,139t.f ) and wondered why the name. ( all 4  of us are native Hoosiers) Also saw Mt. Lincoln at 14,296 ft.  

 

As we neared Pikes Peak, it was time for lunch and we ended up in Manitou Springs at a neat little place called Adams Mountain Café.  They advertise “ slow food” as everything is cooked from scratch.  This probably wasn’t the day to try out “slow food” as everyone was in a hurry to start up Pikes Peak, but the food was good and soon we were off for the peak.  Jerry is the only one of our group who had been to the top nearly 30 years ago and he ( along with the rest of us) was stunned that the charge was $40 per car to drive up 19 miles to the top.   And on top of that, we could only drive 15 miles as it was SNOWING at the top!!  We were all spoiled over the past 3 weeks using our Senior National Park Pass for all the National Parks and saving over $200.  We didn’t even make 15 miles as it started snowing a lot, and we turned around to go back down.  So, Jerry is still the only one to reach the top of Pikes Peak.

 

 

 

Late afternoon, we headed out across the Colorado Front Range and into the flat plains of eastern Colorado, staying in Limon. Colorado for the night. We dodged the bullet with a bad thunder storm and were in a great position for the trip headed back to Indiana the next day. We were rewarded by a splendid rainbow as the rain moved off to the southeast.

We have been gone three weeks and the guys  still can’t decipher the “back seat code” the girls use all the time. ( We keep it that  way!) Ha.

Day 22 of Western Adventures ( Part A)

Another crisp morning  with wake up in Glenwood Springs, Colorado greeted us today. Our plans were to drive over to Pikes Peak for a quick look at the fourteener near Colorado Springs.  We heard that Andy Williams had passed away, so we listened to Moon River from Jerry’s list of over 9,000 songs loaded on his portable hard drive. We enjoyed a scenic drive along I-70 and the Colorado River.

  We saw the first snow at Vail Pass.

 

We were hoping to see some leaf color in the aspens and we weren’t disappointed.  Vail, Beaver Creek and Copper Mountain ski areas looked lonely, but we know from past experience that things will perk up soon.  Bob and Joyce have been to Vail and Copper to ski some time ago.  Friends Lynn and Mike Bull will arrive soon at Copper for the winter season where they both work.       

Day 23 of Western Adventures

 

On the road again!!! ( Jerry played the Willie Nelson song of the same name as we left.)  We are leaving central Colorado today and driving across the entire state of Kansas. The blog for today is rather uninteresting compared to the past 3 weeks.  Colorado and Kansas are as flat as a pancake with few trees and certainly no more mountains.  Already miss the mountains.

I am glad people like to live here and grow our corn and feed our meat supply of hogs and beef cattle, but this is not the life for me. ( or any of us on this trip). 

 

We see endless fields of corn, wheat (harvested) and hay. We also see large fields of sorghum and sunflowers.     The satellite photo shows an intricate tapestry of farms below.  Irrigation circles are quite evident from the air.  Kansas is the Sunflower state, but we were not aware that so much sorghum was raised.  Probably is added to cattle feed. The huge grain bins seem in abundant supply as we race past one tiny town after another on the interstate.  It is still a stretch to imagine this land populated with thousands and thousands of bison, roaming free, well over a two hundred years ago, as well as the mode of transportation being the covered wagon on a dusty trail. We have truly been roaming  throughout the land where the deer and the antelope roamed. ( along with a very few buffalo today.)  As early as 1830, American pioneers had eliminated almost all bison east of the Mississippi.  By 1880s, most of the western herds had also disappeared.

 

We have also seen huge wind farms across the Kansas plains as well as oil and gas pumping rigs.      

 

In the next few days, we will compile a “by the numbers” list for our trip.  We are astounded as the numbers add up.  Take a guess at how much we saved with our America the Beautiful Senior Park Pass, how many miles we have driven, how many restroom stops we made, how many beds we have slept in, how many states we visited, how many parks,  how many Mc Donalds cups of coffee, etc…………..  Watch a future post for the “By the Numbers” count.  The totals astound even the four of us even though we lived it all.  This has indeed been the adventure of a lifetime. We feel so fortunate to have the health as well as the resources to complete our Western Adventures.

Day 24 of Western Adventures

Our adventure into the Western National Parks has been a great one.  In 1916, the enabling  legislation was drafted for the National Park Service, reading in part: “…to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

 

Our America the Beautiful Senior Pass has saved us at least $ 230 as one pass will allow the entire car to enter at no charge. Fabulous deal for Seniors.  If you have any intention of visiting  a number of the parks, you should take advantage of this offer.

 

 

The National Parks are really one of our most beloved national treasures.  Throughout our trip, we have seen many, many tour buses totally filled with foreign visitors, who also realize that the USA has unique vistas for tourists.  While Europe may have its own treasures in ancient Roman and Greek ruins, our park treasures will often trump them all as the beginnings are traced back millions of years. 

 

Our journey on this 24th day begins outside of Kansas City as we head toward St. Louis and a quick stop at the GATEWAY  ARCH and the Museum of Westward Expansion. The exhibit, as well as the ARCH, commemorates the historic Lewis and Clark trip in 1803-1806. Lydia and Jerry have visited numerous times, but this is a first for Joyce and Bob.  The girls propose that we make the ARCH a National Park so we can count it as # 14, but don’t think that will happen. Too bad all the National Monuments and National Parks don’t count  as our number # 14 park.

 

Thomas Jefferson was honored at the Museum of Western Expansion as the vision behind acquiring most of the land west of the Mississippi.  Red Cloud  featured the plight of the Indians as pioneers continued their westward expansion.  Such a tragedy that we were not respectful of those who were keepers of the land hundreds of years before the expansion was even anyone’s dream.

 

 

    Thomas Jefferson        Red Cloud      On the Tram      On the Tram

The ARCH is difficult to photograph effectively as it is so tall, and you need to be so far back to capture it in entirety.  Quick stop was also a joke as we waited in line at least 5 times…even after purchasing our tickets online.  For future information to anyone who wants to visit:  1.  Don’t go on a Saturday  2.  Don’t go on a day the Cardinals are playing  3.  Don’t attend on a National Parks Day.  We eventually made the trip up the tram to 630 feet nearly straight up.  Once you adjusted to the crowds, the views were spectacular.  The real treasure at the ARCH is the Westward Expansion museum with the story of the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery.  Other exhibits illustrated the sign of the times in the pioneer days.  

The park that is home to the ARCH is a beautiful one that has escaped all the touristy commercialism of so many places, and was such a place of natural beauty.  We actually witnessed  three weddings in the park on that late fall September Saturday.

      

 

 

At the end of the day. we were more than ready to retire to our hotel in the tiny town of Vandalia, the second capitol of Illinois.  We enjoyed a meal in town at one of the few restaurants available and retired early to be ready for our 25th day and the trip back in Indiana.

Western Adventures VAIL PASS

  We saw our first snow at Vail Pass.

More snow photos as soon as I can upload the blog.

Western Adventures: Posting Challenges

 

We have been on the road for over 3 weeks and not really had any problems posting our blog to the website until last night.  We are in a different hotel tonight, and still have problems.  We left Colorado this morning and tonight are outside of Kansas City in Missouri.  Will continue to try to post as we had an interesting day yesterday at Pikes Peak.

Day Twenty-one of Western Adventures

 

After yesterday’s “audible call” for a wonderful tour detour to Capitol Reef, today we are back on track and ready to visit Park # 13, Arches National Park.  Some superstition kicks in, and we are a little nervous about stopping on this number, but a quick search doesn’t show another park even close to our planned route home.  Guess we will end our adventures with lucky # 13.

 

We have had more rain overnight and for the first time, we start our day with cloudy skies, cooler temperatures and most of us have jackets on.  There are no food establishments in the park, so we stop at the market to pick up sandwiches and plan to picnic in the park.

 

Arches is another of the smaller parks and if you don’t plan to hike, it is basically a one way drive in and same way out.  The Arches encompasses yet another strange set of rock formations, unlike most we have seen in any other park. From Fodor’s.com/parks comes this description: “In Arches National Park some of the most unimaginable rock formations in the world stand in testimony to the power behind the Earth’s movement and erosional forces.”  

       

The park lies atop an underground salt bed that is responsible for the arches, spires, balanced rocks, sandstone fins and eroded monoliths of this mecca for sightseers.  Thousands of feet thick in places, this salt bed was deposited across the Colorado Plateau 300 million years ago when a sea flowed into the region and eventually evaporated.  Over millions of years, the debris was compressed as rock, possibly a mile thick.  Salt under pressure is unstable and the pressure of the rock caused the salt to shift, buckle, liquefy, and reposition itself, thrusting the rock layers upward as domes and cavities.  Today the layers of Navajo Sandstone and Entrada Sandstone stand much like a layer cake across the park.     

 

 

      

 

 

 

The park showcases over 2, 000 arches.  To be defined as an arch, a rock opening must be in a continuous wall of rock and have a minimum opening of 3 feet in any one direction.  With this clear definition in mind, we start the hunt for the first of 2,000 arches.  We eventually find some that meet the criteria, and we stop for the obligatory photo op.  However, as the morning progresses, we find ourselves coming up way short of 2,000 arches.  In the rain, hiking is not an option for the girls, and we leave it up to the guys to get the photos.  Numerous rock formations have been named by some unknown naming committee, and we have even more fun naming some of our own.    

  From the shelter of our car, we can see the two guys in the arch.

       

As we all tried for the perfect photos to match those in the travel guides, we are totally convinced that those must have been taken by photographers with off-road permits to places we are not allowed. There is just no way we can make our photos look like theirs, and we can’t blame a cloudy, rainy day either.    This is one of those travel brochure photos.

 

Some of our favorite rocks were this lovely turquoise color which we found out were colored  sandstone with chlorite or iron silicate.

 

 

Throughout the park, there are huge boulders that have tumbled from their perches who knows how many years ago.   

 

As we exited the park, someone’s sharp eye spotted two climbers and we had to stop to photograph and watch a bit.  Climbing is permitted in the park, but not on any structures named on the USGS maps. ( Geological Survey)    

 

While our photos may not be perfect, we all have those precious memories that can never be taken from us nor duplicated by any technology.  Lydia brought the Purdue flag along on the trip so we could take our photo with it, and it looks like we have waited until nearly the last day and in the rain at that, but we still make the effort.

 

 

 

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