Evening 1--July 31, 2015
Day 1--August 1, 2015
Wisconsin to Bettendorf, Iowa
Bettendorf, Iowa to Calhan, Colorado
We left the house right on schedule: 6:30 pm! ....And then we had to stop 20 minutes down the road. Mainiac had accidentally left her phone, drivers license, and debit card in her family's car, and we needed to pick that up before heading out of state. Thankfully we discovered it was missing
before we made it to Colorado!
Driving west into the sunset, we watched the rear-view mirror as a "blue moon" rose behind us. A blue moon, according to
Wikipedia, is
"a second full moon in a month of the common calendar."
KT and El took the first driving/navigating shift, then we paused at my grandparents' house long enough to say hello, change into comfy clothes, and pick up the GPS.
I took the next leg of the journey and made it almost to Council Bluffs. Mainiac made a wonderful navigator, and kept me awake with funny stories, trivia pulled up on her phone (thank goodness for 3G!), and classic Newsboys/Michael W. Smith sing-alongs. Sometime between 1 and 2 AM I realized that driving any further would be a
very unwise decision, so we switched out with El and KT and slept until we reached Kearney, Nebraska.
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| Blue Moon around 2-3:00 am. |
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| Blue moon around 6:00am, when we stopped for gas in Kearney |
From Kearney we dropped down into Kansas on a road parallel to the railroad, taking us through small towns such as Long Island and Funk.
Some might think that the drive through Kansas would be boring, since the road is so flat and straight, but I thought it was beautiful. We drove through fields of sunflowers and over the west end of beautiful Harlan County Lake.
Driving through Kansas might have been my favorite drive of the trip. Okay, maybe not The Favorite. The Peak-to-Peak Highway and Trail Ridge Road both had some fantastic scenery! But this was pretty and quiet and peaceful.
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| Harlan County Lake |
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| Harlan County Lake |
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| Abandoned house close to the Colorado border |
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| We're here!! (That's not us.) |
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| Driving through wind turbine country! |
Allow me to introduce the Colorado Crew!
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| El, back there reading |
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| Mainiac, living up to her name. ;) I think we were singing along to Fiddler on the Roof... |
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| There's me, Kiwi! |
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| KT finally fell asleep. (she doesn't sleep well in cars.) |
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| We had fun with wipe-off markers. |
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| First glimpse of mountains! |
Next post: Paint Mines Interpretive Park and maybe Focus on the Family, too.
2 comments:
Great pictures -- Looking forward to the next installment. I agree about enjoying driving through places that some might think boring. We even enjoyed Nebraska. There's always something interesting to see if you look for it.
I'm sure these places could be boring, but that depends on the company you're with! We had music and friends. That made all the difference. :)
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