Day 4—four days, four McDonald’s stops

And today was even a double stop—twice in one day!!! And one stop involved a free caramel frappe…but I’m getting ahead of myself…

After a great night’s sleep, we packed up and were on the road fairly early—sometime around 7, 8 or 9 o’clock—depending on which time zone you’re going by. Michael’s parents refuse to go by whatever ‘local time zone’ we are in and still have their watches set to ‘Georgia time’. This has become a running family joke. I was ahead of schedule this morning due to Michael having already set the computer time ahead and not telling me—so I was already operating by mountain time when it was still central time. Very confusing. ANY-WAY….

(enjoying a rest from her hard day on the range!)

As we were leaving Texas and driving toward New Mexico/Colorado, we saw a lot of deer/antelope-type animals and the scenery began to change. Instead of vast, tree-less flatlands for as far as the eye could see, we began to see things like this:

and this:

and this:

When we finally entered the “Mile High” city, we were treated to fantastic views of the Rocky Mountains (And sadly for all of us, my/Abbie’s camera and photography skills are less than professional!! I’m sure it also doesn’t help that I’m taking pictures through the window at 70 mph!).

The drive to Estes Park was beautiful—it actually reminded me a lot of the Great Smoky Mtns. (and while I admit it is probably heresey to compare the Smokies to the Rockies, this is my blog and I’ll compare if I want to!) We arrived at Jellystone Campground—just in time for a series of pop up thunderstorms. Needless to say, the girls were less than thrilled about that! But the rain finally went away and we were able to check out the playgrounds and game room. We also enjoyed dinner outside the RV—it was actually cool enough to enjoy being outside—imagine!!!

All in all a pretty good day. We drove about 440 miles and made quite a few stops—including the above referenced McDonald’s visits. We did manage to avoid another Wal-Mart stop (our count is up to 2 so far) when ‘Super Target’ appeared at our exit! Woohoo!! Tomorrow, we will leave Colorado and drive to Wyoming—it will be a shorter day, mileage wise, but we won’t be leaving at daybreak either.

(My sad attempt at ‘artistic photography’!)

P.S. Thanks for the comments on Abbie’s blog :-)