Colorado to Nebraska
Trip Start
Jul 11, 2011
1
9
31
Trip End
Dec 31, 2011
Where I stayed
What I did
Said WOW a thousand times
North Platte, Nebraska
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Going back to Grand Junction, Colorado for a moment.....the motel was next to the local airport. Everything was pretty quiet for an airport until it got dark. Once it was dark it sounded like carrier jets were doing touch-and-go night time landings! Just about when we wondered if we needed to change motels, they stopped. It felt like an episode of X-files when I asked the clerk in the morning about the jets and all he kept saying was that the airport was closed from midnight until 5:00 AM.
We thought the drive into Colorado was beautiful but going from Grand Junction to Denver had us saying WOW with every turn. The mountains were amazing and so was the Colorado river that followed on the side of the road. I kept reviewing what I had learned in Geology back in college as we drove along. It always amazes me to see where electric lines (or maybe telephone lines) have been laid. In the most remote parts of this drive you can see the lines and it makes me wonder about the people who worked on them and how they ever got up the mountain side with all the equipment and how they could stand on the side of a mountain while they put in the poles and strung the lines. Did they have to camp along the way for weeks just to get the job done? Almost the moment we go to Denver the mountains remained in the background and the land was as flat as it could be. The scenery went from dramatic to plain in the blink of an eye. However, there is another kind of beauty in a wide-open sky without anything to break the horizon.
People have been friendly along the way... The men have held doors open, practically tipping their hats, and many ladies have more tattoos than I have ever seen in California. Mary said she had never seen so many men with boobs and women with jiggly bellies.
Mary here... I told Kathleen about telephone pioneers. That would make Polly's, Chris' and my father happy. All our fathers worked for the phone company. I drive at 5 am so it is dark, but I love seeing where we are when the sun rises. We switch drivers every 2 hours. Kathleen likes to listen to the local radio stations. The weather reports include mention of nearby states as if they were nearby cities. There are also daily slaughter reports for cattle and hogs as well as where to buy new herds and how much your crops will sell for.
I just wanted to include some Haley pictures as per your requests. I like driving and singing to the Blind Boys of Alabama. I love their Amazing Grace to the tune of the House of the Rising Sun. It works so well while driving through Nebraska. In Nebraska we went to Appleby's for dinner. Our waitress was very excited to be serving us. There were no people from other countries in the restaurant. That was a shock. The lady in Wall Mart asked us what we thought of Nebraska and told us most people from California talked about the bugs. Apparently, California has no bugs.
Somebody put a picture of George Bush II on our car that said, "Miss me yet?" I took it off the car and left it on a garbage can at the store where we bought ice. Trash seemed appropriate for my missing of the Bush times. As in "not!"
The motel in North Platte was wonderful. It was right on the south Platte River. The kids were blond and brown, like they had been spending their vacation on the river. We made up for all the sleep we did not get in Grand Junction. We did laundry...correction...Kathleen did laundry. It is really nice to feel fresh and clean, isn't it? The only thing was that their wi-fi was down. That's why we are trying to catch up.
Comments
I had a big laugh because of --> "Mary said she had never seen so many men with boobs and women with jiggly bellies."
Really, it was disgustingly shocking!!!