Day 1--Paint Mines Interpretive Park

August 1, 2015

(click the pictures to see them larger!)

See the corresponding post on Colorado Conversations for more pictures!

We arrived in Calhan, Colorado shortly after 11:00 am. It was HOT.

Paint Mines Interpretive Park is located just south of the small town of Calhan. I compare it to the Badlands in South Dakota, only much smaller, and possibly more colorful.
If you have time to explore, park in the first parking lot you come to. For a shorter visit, continue down the road to the second parking lot. You can see the canyon from there, and it's just a short hike down into the dry, colorful world of the paint mines.

from the top of the trail, looking north

Looking north-east

Looking east

KT and Mainiac, exploring.

Mainiac is on the short side, not breaking 5' 5", so imagine her excitement when she stood up and bumped her head on the rock! To any person of average or above height, this is a common annoyance, but to her it is a rare occurrence indeed.

Fairy Trumpet Flowers, or  Ipomopsis aggregata

Goldenrod

prickly pear cactus!

Colorado: Day 1--Driving!

**Please see my blog created specifically for this trip! It's located at http://coloradoconversations.blogspot.com/
I'll post abbreviated versions of each post on this blog (trying to revive it a bit!), but the full posts (with more pictures!) will be at Colorado Conversations. Some of the other girls on the trip might post there as well--we'll see. You are welcome to comment on either blog, and follow the links to the corresponding posts on Colorado Conversations. :)

Evening 1--July 31, 2015

Day 1--August 1, 2015

Wisconsin to Bettendorf, Iowa

Bettendorf, Iowa to Calhan, Colorado

We left the house right on schedule: 6:30 pm! ....And then we had to stop 20 minutes down the road. Mainiac had accidentally left her phone, drivers license, and debit card in her family's car, and we needed to pick that up before heading out of state. Thankfully we discovered it was missing before we made it to Colorado!

Driving west into the sunset, we watched a rosy sunset ahead of us and the blue moon rising behind us. It was enormous and beautiful. (see picture below)

KT and El took the first driving/navigating shift, then we paused at my grandparents' house long enough to say hello, change into comfy clothes, and pick up the GPS.
I took the next leg of the journey and made it almost to Council Bluffs. Mainiac made a wonderful navigator, and kept me awake with funny stories, trivia pulled up on her phone (thank goodness for 3G!), and classic Newsboys/Michael W. Smith sing-alongs. Sometime between 1 and 2 AM I realized that driving any further would be a very unwise decision, so we switched out with El and KT and slept until we reached Kearney, Nebraska.

Blue Moon around 2-3:00 am.

From Kearney we dropped down into Kansas on a road parallel to the railroad, taking us through small towns such as Long Island and Funk.

Some might think that the drive through Kansas would be boring, since the road is so flat and straight, but I thought it was beautiful. We drove through fields of sunflowers and over the west end of beautiful Harlan County Lake.
Driving through Kansas might have been my favorite drive of the trip. Okay, maybe not The Favorite. The Peak-to-Peak Highway and Trail Ridge Road both had some fantastic scenery! But this was pretty and quiet and peaceful.

Harlan County Lake

Abandoned house close to the Colorado border

We're here!! (That's not us.)

Allow me to introduce the Colorado Crew!


El, back there reading

Mainiac, living up to her name. ;)
I think we were singing along to Fiddler on the Roof...

There's me, Kiwi!

KT finally fell asleep. (she doesn't sleep well in cars.)

 

First glimpse of mountains! Taken a little ways east of Calhan, Colorado.
You really have to squint to see it, but there's a mountain there!

Next post: Paint Mines Interpretive Park!

A Change of Plans

We are down to 

          Three-Hundred 

                    Seventy Days 

[and] 

                              Five[ish] Hours 

                                        until we take off for Colorado! 

I get rather excited when I think about it, but it's also bitter-sweet right now.
The "cousins" we planned to travel with are not able to come.
To be completely honest, that was going to be half the fun of the trip. The four of us are best friends. El and Emmers are both adventurous but cautious and sensible. KK and I are more adventurous and crazy. We would have balanced each other out perfectly!
There were so many plans, and now they have to change. Life doesn't always happen the way you plan it, so you adapt and enjoy. And sometimes the adaptations surprise you.

El and I started brainstorming immediately about who else we could invite. The two of us would be fun, but you know what they say: "the more the merrier and the cheaper!" She called up one of our dear friends who is living in Maine right now, but comes back to Wisconsin regularly. We were both surprised and amazed when she replied (paraphrase):

"Of course! I have no idea what I'm doing next year, but I would LOVE to go!! How much do you need? I can't pay all of it right away, but I can send you a check for part this week if you need it!"

How awesome is that? No questions, no "let me think about it," just "when do I pay?"

I spoke to one of my long-time best friends, Ruthie. She's spunky and crazy and adventurous too, but will be taking paramedic classes next summer (she had worked her way up to advanced EMT at 19!), so can't commit. That's another disappointment, but we'll see what happens.

Right now there's one friend pending decision, and we might have to start looking for a fourth adventurer if she can't go.
          But we'll see.
                    We still have three-hundred seventy days and assorted hours left.

--Kiwi D. Fruit

Another Trip?

Well folks! It's been what, 6 months since I posted here last? Pretty sad, isn't it. Eventful things have been happening in my neck of the woods, but most of them aren't really the "Share With the Interwebs" type of thing. I've been wanting to get back into blogging some, but frankly didn't know what to type about.
Then at the beginning of this month my sister and I started making Plans.
Big Plans.
The kind you Capitalize.
People, my sister and I are going to Colorado next summer, and we are stoked!

We're not leaving until July of 2015, which is 498 days away (yes, there is a Colorado Countdown Timer), which gives us plenty of time to plan, save, and scheme. As of March 20, the brief rundown is as follows:

• Arrive in Colorado Springs on Saturday morning, and explore the Garden of the Gods visitors' center, maybe Focus on the Family/Whit's End, etc.
• While in Colorado Springs we'll be exploring Garden of the Gods, the city itself, hike on Mt. Evans, celebrate our "cousin's" birthday, and whatever else we feel like doing.
• Then we're headed over to Estes Park, where we'll get to go into Rocky Mountain National Park during its 100th year of National Parkhood! (If you remember from my last post, I got to go stand by the sign but never actually enter!) We'll hike in RMNP, of course, and tour the town and buy souvenirs and take pictures. We also might take a horseback ride--that's still in discussion.
• We'll also spend about a day in Denver, touring the city and seeing all the sights.

My sister and I invited our "adopted cousins" to accompany us, and we're all so very excited about taking at trip to begin with--to be going with each other is even better!

I'll try to blog a few times as we continue to plan. We'll be doing hikes and walks in our area to start getting in shape for next summer. The next 498 days can't go fast enough. =D

--KiwiDFruit

Twenty Trip--An Unexpected Roadtrip

Wednesday, September 12th, 2012

Our last day of true vacation!

We left the Oregon Trail and continued back towards the East, quite melancholy at the thought of our vacation ending. Then panic set in.

Vacation? Done? Finished? Completely?! We can't have that! It can't be over that quickly! Besides, we still lack several souvenirs for the folks back home! Quick, turn the car around!

We left the hotel in Laramie and stopped at a gas station parking lot to decide where to go. The result?

Estes Park, Colorado!

My parents and sister had stopped there briefly during her Twenty Trip back in 2010, so we thought it would be a fun side-trip. 

Plenty of interesting shoppes to poke through and souvenirs to obtain.

Off we went. The terrain was most interesting, how we went from the flat, flat lands of southern Wyoming, into bluffs and hills, then suddenly we were in the mountains! These were impressive, but not as much so as the Beartooth or the Tetons. Those ranges just shot up out of nowhere, where as coming into Estes park the climb was more gradual.

Anyway, here are some pictures.

I should have kept count of the national forests we drove through.

The fog lent a fairytale quality to the mountains. Who knows how much further they go up?

Mom was trying to take a nice picture, but I hadn't photobombed at ALL for this entire trip! I got this one in, though. It's a good one.  

We stopped by the river (name of river: unknown) to take pictures. Oh, beautiful! 

It was chilly, definitely a mid-fall afternoon, but enjoyable.

One can almost see a castle atop this.

Dad and I on a (very slippery) boulder in the middle of the river. 

Mom stayed safely on dry ground, camera in one hand and 911 on speed-dial in the other 

for when we fell in.

Had to take a pic with Spidey! 

(Haven't you noticed him in previous pictures? He's in quite a few, the sneaky little photobomber.)

This is my new shop! I should have applied to work there--see that "help wanted" sign in the window? How cool would it be for a Laura to work at Laura's?

To polish it all off, we swung by Rocky Mountain National Park. Technically we never went inside the park, but I walked to the other side of the sign--that counts, right?

The end!

My Twenty Trip was over before I knew it. We drove late into the night, found a hotel in the middle of somewhere, and drove more the next day. My aunt and uncle in Gilman, Iowa

fed us lunch, then we made our way back home.

What a vacation. I'd change a few minor details, but nothing major. Another week would have been nice, but at the same time it may have been to long. 

I was glad to be home, but the travel bug has bitten.

Thank you for reading, folks! I'm sure I can sort a few more pictures into another post or two, but we shall see. I'm not sure where this blog shall go next.

Have a good one!

~Kiwi~