Getting ready to go On the Loose again!

 Four days and counting. It’s time to resurrect our travel blog. We will be heading for the Texas coast on Tuesday, January 10. Our trusty travel trailer, Lucy, is in the driveway and she’s starting to collect our various boxes and bags of clothing, household goods, food, books, recreational gear, and of course, my craft supplies! It will be a busy few days but we are getting excited. While the windchill temperature here in Missouri is 19°, it is supposed to get up to 78° today and Rockport. We can’t get there fast enough!

I will do my best to update our blog every few days during our travels. Can’t wait to see old friends in Texas and we know we will miss our friends here in Missouri. Please stay in touch!

Internet Trouble

 Hi, friends! I’ve been so excited all day to share the photos of our amazing Day 5 at Mesa Verde National Park (all the beautiful cliff dwellings of the Anasazi people around 1100-1200 a.d.). But the campground where we’re staying (West Wendover, Nevada) has TERRIBLE internet service. I waited 15 minutes for it to download one photo, and finally gave up. So I’m sending this non-photo message, hoping it will post, telling you not to give up on us. My reports to you may be a few days behind, but I plan to do them as soon as I have some reliable internet. That may be as early as tomorrow evening…though I’m learning on this trip not to make promises!!!

Meanwhile, know that we’re having a wonderful time (albeit pretty hot!). Tomorrow evening we hope to reach our destination for the next week: Garden Valley, Idaho, where we lived for 10 years. We’ll be camped outside the home of some friends, so hopefully we can tap into their internet service to continue the blog posts. Hope to connect again with you soon!!!

Day 5, Pueblo to Cortez, Colorado

 We knew this would be a long day of driving, through lots of mountainous country, so we got an early start. To be honest, there wasn’t much action on Day 5; it mostly consisted of driving and filling up with gas! However, we drove through such beautiful country, that even though I don’t have much activity to report, I have lots of photos to show of the amazing scenery we enjoyed, which changed moment by moment. As you look through the following photos, notice how the landscape and vegetation change. We started out with the mountains in the distance, and lots of deciduous trees on the roadside. It gradually changed to rocky areas with exposed outcropping and lots of scrub brush, and then to snow-capped mountains with mostly evergreen trees. Colorado is one amazing state, and we saw only one tiny strip of it, in the southern part. Though we’ve explored much of Colorado in the past, there is so much more to see, and we can’t wait to return for more.

As you look through the photos, you can click or tap each one to enlarge it and see more detail. 

 

Now we’re getting into the higher snow country.

Snow fences alongside the road prevent huge drifts from blowing across the highway and blocking traffic during high winds in the winter.

I love the carpet of wildflowers!

And the first aspen trees we’ve seen on this trip; one of the prettiest trees ever, especially in the fall!

One lovely town we passed through was Walseenburg, Colorado. Besides having a charming little downtown, the area is known for the annual gathering of sandhill cranes in the nearby Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve. Every corner in the downtown area is decorated with a colorful sandhill crane sculpture. I caught a few of them as we drove through town:

Now we’re really seeing why these are called the Rocky Mountains!

And we not only drive over the mountains, but sometimes THROUGH them as well!

I love this scenic farm we passed. Can you imagine managing a small family farm in this rugged country?

And as we got closer to our destination of Cortez, we saw the first foretaste of the amazing rock formations we’ll encounter in a couple of days. 

We arrived at our campsite near Cortez, Colorado in the early evening, exhausted from the long drive, but happy to have made it over the mountains pulling Lucy with our little 6 cylinder Toyota Tacoma! We discovered once we got there that although the RV park did have wi-fi as they promised, it didn’t reach out  as far as our campsite, which was way on the outer edge. So I’m a little behind in posting this blog. 

Here’s Roxanne, our camp host. She was AMAZING on the phone last night, when we changed our route at the last minute. Looking at our original plans of going through some of Colorado’s most mountainous and twisting roads, we realized that we would be pushing the limits of our little truck to pull Lucy over them. So we decided to travel farther south, where the mountain passes were lower: More miles, but less drastic elevation changes. I called every RV park I could find, in and around Durango and Cortez, and not surprisingly, heard “no vacancy” time after time. Roxanne stayed in the office late and worked her magic with the reservation system. She called me back later to say she had worked out a site for us on the edge of the Ancient Cedars RV Park. We’re so grateful for people who go the extra mile to help others!

Day 6 was a day of exploring Mesa Verde National Park, and I’ll show you some amazing photos of that next. But for now, it’s time to turn in. These long days of driving…whew! We’ll be happy when we get to Boise/Garden Valley in a couple of days, and we can stay put for a while!

Days 2 & 3: Cheney Lake, KS, to Dodge City, then to Pueblo, Colorado

 We’re clipping along westward at a pretty good pace. The object right now is to get some miles behind us so we can be in Boise Idaho this coming Tuesday. We want a few days to enjoy family and friends and prepare for Hudson’s and Misty’s wedding on Saturday. So we’ve been driving a lot, and staying in each place only one night, which is not usually our preferred way to travel. We like to take our time and explore a little more. But that will come later. 

We woke yesterday morning at Cheney Lake State Park to this beautiful sunrise. Since we’d driven so long the day before, and we didn’t have as long a drive ahead of us, we took our time enjoying the morning by the lake, and didn’t leave camp till 11 a.m.

The weather has been HOT! Daytime temperatures have ranged from 97-100 during most of our driving time. We’re so thankful for good air conditioning in the car, and in the travel trailer.

As we moved from the eastern half of Kansas to the western half, we saw a definite difference in the agriculture, due to the change in humidity (or lack thereof!). The map below shows a stark difference right down the middle of Kansas. The green part to the right is where we saw more corn fields, and once the white part started, to the west of mid-Kansas, we saw mostly grain fields, cattle feed lots, and even the occasional horse-head oil pump. It reminded us a little more of west Texas. 

Every bit of hay is baled, even right up to the edge of the highway:

Gas stations out here are few and far between, so when we arrived at Dodge City, Kansas, we slid in on fumes and a prayer. We were so thankful that we didn’t run out of gas in 101 degree heat! Our campground was right in town, which is unusual for us; we generally like to be “out” when we camp. But it was very convenient for exploring the town. 

Dodge City was the end point for many of the huge cattle drives in the 1800’s. Millions of Longhorns were driven to or through the area. As we drove around town, we were surprised to see that the majority of 

the population is Hispanic (almost 70%, we later found out). After we thought about it, this made sense. The Mexican cow hands, with their stamina, strength, and endurance were crucial to the success of the strenuous, exhausting cattle drives. And since Dodge City, with the railroad, was the end point, many of the vaqueros settled here. 

After setting up camp, we went in search of a mid-afternoon lunch. There are about 20 Mexican restaurants in the small city, and we were ready for some authentic Mexican food. However, we couldn’t find a single restaurant open in the afternoon. I realized that the proprietors were probably all observing the traditional afternoon siesta. We had to settle for Applebees….not very historic, but tasty nonetheless, for 2 hungry travelers! Then we explored around town before retiring to our campground in the middle of town.

Day 3: Dodge City, Kansas to Pueblo, Colorado. Thursday, June 17

As we enjoyed our tea outside Lucy this morning, we experienced an unusual event: the train ran right alongside the campground. What an interesting juxtaposition!

We knew today would be a long drive, and that we would climb in elevation (making the travel a little slower), so we set out a little earlier. (We’re not known for our early-bird tendencies, so for us 8:30 a.m. was an early start!). Our steady push westward took us through lots of little western towns, and quite a few abandoned cabins on the side of the road. The Post Office in the town of Hasty was especially picturesque:

After we settled into camp this afternoon, we saw a huge storm on the horizon. We pulled everything inside as the wind picked up. But as threatening as it looked, the storm slid on by us. The breeze that it brought was a welcome relief from the heat, though!

This shot from the Google Earth app shows our route over the last couple of days. The east-west green line toward the bottom of the map (below the Interstate) follows the Arkansas River. That’s essentially where we’ve been traveling.

And now that we’re in Pueblo, we’ll be heading toward the Rocky Mountains tomorrow. We can see them looming ahead. Tomorrow we plan to skirt south of the most mountainous areas, and end up near Mesa Verde National Monument. We’re going to spend 2 nights at the same campground, so we can have a little more time to explore the area. 

Thanks for joining us on our journey. Hope to send the next blog post from near Cortez, Colorado. Westward Ho!

Day 1 of Second big “On the Loose” trip: Southwest Missouri to Idaho, Montana & Back

 Woo-hoo! We’re On the Loose again, in “Lucy,” our trusty 23’ KZ Vision travel trailer! After several days of  planning, sorting, packing, and preparing for a 3000+ mile trip, we pushed off yesterday at the crack of noon. We left our beautiful flower garden in almost-full bloom…hope some of the flowers are still there when we return!

We’re heading west through Kansas, Colorado, Utah & Nevada to our old stomping grounds in Idaho (Boise and Garden Valley) for our son Hudson’s wedding. Then north into Montana to visit friends from the 1970’s to 1990’s when we lived there. Then back home via a different route. We plan to avoid the Interstate highways as much as possible and discover new places and meet new friends. It’s such fun to be wandering again!

Curt has always loved maps, so we don’t use a GPS in our travels We purchased a new spiral-bound atlas for this trip. He plans our route each day, and this is his low-tech alternative to the GPS: a hand-written memo with basic directions, placed in the speedometer well. It works great, and we occasionally get to find some real unexpected surprises in our travels!

As we entered Eastern Kansas, we immediately saw a difference in the farming from southwest Missouri. There weren’t nearly as many cattle ranch operations, and we saw LOTS more cornfields. Apparently the soil in Kansas is perfect for corn. If it’s supposed to be “knee high by the Fourth of July,” they’re ahead of schedule; most of the fields we saw appeared to be at least shoulder high. Lots of wheat fields, too, as we headed farther west, with the accompanying grain elevators on many of the farms.

With a couple of stops for gas, and one lunch stop (foraging in Lucy’s refrigerator), we made it halfway across Kansas to Cheney Lake State Park. There was enough daylight left to enjoy our lakeside campsite and walk down to the little pebbled beach. I LOVED our weathered picnic table, ravaged by the elements. Looks like you could use one of the planks as an emergency water ski!

It was a LONG first day (especially since I had been up packing till 3 am the previous night!)…so we turned in early and slept like babies all night! It’s so great to be on the road again. The last time we took an extended trip was in 2014, from Texas up to Maine, into Canada’s Maritime Provinces, and back down to Texas through New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and back down to the Texas coast. We started with our pop-up tent camper, traveling the first 7000 miles in that, and then in Maine we traded it in for Lucy and traveled the last 3000 miles in comparative luxury! That’s the trip that got me started writing this blog. If you’re interested in reading about it, click on the 2014 year in the right hand sidebar, and keep scrolling down to May, 2014. 

Day 2 will involved more of Kansas. It’s a wide state!!! As we pass all the farms, I’m so grateful for the farmers and their families who work so hard to provide the abundant food we enjoy. Some of our best friends are farmers, and we know that it’s a risky business, financially and health-wise, as well as an enormous amount of unbelievably hard work. Thank you, farmers and ranchers!