Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Day 5—whoever named Chicago the ‘windy city’ has clearly never been to Wyoming.

We began this morning with a round of putt-putt with Yogi & friends.  No score was officially kept—which is a very good thing because mama would probably not have retained her title as ‘putt putt queen’. 

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We then said goodbye to Jellystone, loaded up the bus and headed into the town of Estes Park, stopping along the way for a photo op. 

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Day 5 009 (Estes Park looks like a darling town—wish we’d had more time!)

The warm weather has caused a massive snowmelt and many of the mountain rivers & streams in CO and WY are at or near flood stage.   We’re hoping this doesn’t impact us too much.  As you can see from this photo, this is very briskly moving water and nothing you want to mess with!

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The scenery changed as we left the Rocky Mountains for Wyoming—there are still mountain peaks (with snow) but they are in the distance and in between are these amazing, vast landscapes—with literally NO-THING for miles (no animals, no people, no houses, no billboards, no towns)—just glorious landscape… and WIND.  OH MY WORD, the wind!  We were blown around for 200 of the 350 miles we drove today—so needless to say, when I was driving, the speed hovered right around 60 mph (when the speed limit was 75!)—I passed NOBODY!!  But at least we arrived safely.

Day 5 013(Not sure if you can see these—we saw a LOT of them today—they are ‘snow fences’ to keep the snow from blowing down onto the roads & railroads—clearly the wind is also an issue in the winter!)

Our destination tonight was Lander, WY.  We found a cute little campground and arrived early enough to grill out our dinner and  to spend some time walking around, playing horseshoes & video games (Ms. PacMan!), and flying planes :-)

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Day 5 018 Tomorrow we will be back on our ‘original itinerary’.  This little deviation was actually a lot of fun and allowed us to get a closer look at some of  Colorado’s beautiful scenery!

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(“Jill” the camp dog is also a trained cattle herder!)

3 comments:

Carol said...

I love the photos that accompany your daily dairy, just a glimpse of the fun you all are having! And I'd say that after reading Abbie's first blog entry about your trip that she has your creative writing genes!

Heather said...

The snow fences are interesting ... I've never herd of them before! Looks like beautiful country. I think I might be sad when your trip is over and I can no longer read your daily updates :)

Thomas R. Feller, Jr. said...

Okay, first of all Chicago is not called the "Windy City" because of all the wind in the atmosphere but because of all the hot air blown by its politicians...

Second, is the river picture the river driving up the road to Estes Park? If so, I've actually driven that road and it is BEAUTIFUL - I think I even have some pictures, too :)

Glad you're having fun - I'm VERY jealous.. Colorado and Wyoming are two of my favorite places on earth... Some day I'll actually get to take Melissa and the girls out there (though with any luck it won't be in an RV but on the seat of a bike...)