I write this entry from a Drury Inn just across I-70 from Royals Stadium in Cindy Lou’s town of birth, Raytown, Missouri. Since we left Crestone two days ago, we have traveled another 1,200+ miles and will arrive Dayton sometime later today. As many travelers feel after more than two weeks on the road, it will be good to get home.
But before we get there and put this trip into past tense, let me just wax philosophical once more to say how amazingly beautiful this country is. The quiet retreat at Nada was surely worth the trip, but witnessing first hand, one more time, the purple mountains majesty and the fruited plain that we sing about on patriotic occasions, is something to appreciate.
After pulling out of Crestone for the last time on Wednesday, we drove a loop inside Colorado, stopping for a time in the little town of Lake City, which like so many others, is an 1880s-era mountain town with roots in mining precious metals. It still sports a real bank on the main corner downtown, with most other storefronts now converted to tourist shops. To get there from the south, one has to traverse scenic CO 149, better known as The Silver Thread. Such a drive! No major mountain peaks on this route, but a 50 mile drive that takes you first along trout fishing waters, then through a pristine wet valley that can take your breath away. Eventually the scenic byway takes you over a pass and down into town, but not before passing through stands of aspen and then mountainsides of conifer. I heard about this route from a teaching colleague who fell in love with it years ago. I think this trip marks my third time through. Wow.
From there our destination for the night was Winter Park, a skiing/rafting/biking mecca about an hour northwest of Denver. Lots of peaks on this route, and some mighty steep passes. Still a bit of snow up there, too. We finished the day with dinner with our nephew, Josh Cooke, a recent Indiana State grad who is making a career in the adventure business. In summer he guides river rafting trips, while in winter snow mobile, or ‘sled’ expeditions into the national forest. He had a few harrowing stories to tell!
Yesterday Cindy and I headed out for earnest on our return trip east. First the long return drive over 13,000 foot Berthoud Pass (nine switchbacks), then onto I-70 through Denver and on into the high plains. Make no mistake: it’s a long way across Kansas. But by late afternoon we found ourselves in the Flint Hills and marveled, again, over America’s natural beauty. One day took us from snow covered peaks to rolling greens hills that went all the way to the horizon. America the beautiful, indeed.
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I regret I haven’t been able to include pictures with this blog. When I get home my goal is to upload pics to my Mac gallery and then figure out how you can view them. Stay tuned for some Colorado imagery. It’s coming.
Today’s elder idea:
O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
from America the Beautiful
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