Back in the Saddle

Monday, August 9, 2010 / Tuesday, August 10, 2010

We made it safely to Colorado yesterday. Christy lives just outside of Denver, and we reached her house in the mid-afternoon. We took a walk around her neighborhood, saw the lake, and walked to the library. Lindsey and I were ready to walk almost anywhere at that point. Then Christy took us to see the Columbine Memorial. That was sobering. It is a beautiful monument, and well constructed. When the rain came we left.

For dinner we had pizza and salad, along with the wine we brought as a hostess gift. After dinner we watched “Miss Congeniality”. I hadn’t seen that for a long time.

Colorado is gorgeous. The Eastern part is the same as the Western part of Kansas, which is more flat and dead than the other, though nowhere near as flat and brown as I was expecting. The Rockies took longer to appear than we thought they would. Little hills popped up here and there, and we, thinking they were the foothills, kept looking for the actual mountains. Seeing none, we wondered if they weren’t as big as we’d always been told, like Kansas isn’t as flat, dead, and boring as we were always told. Eventually, though, we were met with walls of stone. Denver is one mile in altitude, and behind it the Rockies looked very imposing. We stopped doubting and started wondering how we’d make it over.

We left this morning at 7:30, and three hours later we’re a little ways into Wyoming, which already looks vastly different from Colorado. It has its plains and hills, but the colors are different. The grass is still green, but more on the yellow side. The trees are becoming less and less deciduous and more coniferous. We’ve gone through one or two of what looked like mountain passes, but they probably weren’t. At all. The Rockies are still in the distance, but we’re feeling the effects of the real foothills. It is incredible country, though. We see lots of cows (no cowboys yet), deer lazily munching their way through a pasture, rocky outcrops, cliffs, rolling hills, horses, and these strange wooden walls that we can’t quite figure out what they’re for. They’re either wind breakers or snow drift preventers. They’re regular 2x4s nailed horizontally to vertical posts, with a few inches of space between each horizontal. The fences are between six and eight feet tall, but are definitely not fences in the enclosing sense. They seem more or less randomly placed, sometimes in rows. Very interesting. Since Colorado we’ve also seen groups of the giant energy windmills. Right now there’s a long row of them across the horizon. It is very windy up here. Last I saw we were almost 7000 feet in elevation. When we stopped for gas in Cheyenne, we were blown perpetually. Temperatures are still pleasant; we have the AC running.

While gassing up in Cheyenne, Lindsey called home to check in and mom told her about the convicts that escaped from Arizona about a week ago. Apparently in the last day or two, one was caught in Wyoming. The search has been extended to Montana. We’re guessing they convicts are on their way to Canada. But, since we’re in Wyoming, we’re being very watchful. We’re not taking hitchhikers anymore, so that should help. Just kidding, we never had any. But we’re keeping a weather eye out for them. Well, it’s time to stick the bike in the car; it’s way too windy for it to stay on top.

Back in the saddle again and running better with the bike in the back seat. I’ve been watching the clouds and seeing some lenticular clouds. They only happen in areas with mountains or high elevations. The warm air rises, collides with the colder mountain air, the moisture from the warm air forms a cloud, but the cloud is punched in from the bottom like a lens. They’re fascinating; being at sea level, we never see them back home.

We've stopped for the night in Tremonton, Utah, which is on the corner of No and Where. Hopefully we'll get into Moscow tomorrow around noon.