July 2004

	Sign In Sign-Up

We celebrated the 4th of July by visiting Gunnison. After looking over all the craft booths and purchasing a bouquet of wildflowers, our friends Bernie and Davvie suggested a ride to Lake City and Creete.
The scenery along route 149 was awesome. Tall mountains reaching over 12,000' high with clear, meanduring streams below. (According to Don it was a fly-fisherman's paradise.)
The main streets were decorated in patriotic colors, and the people
were celebrating in an old-fashioned manner.
We found the local eatery was famous for catfish and hush puppies
so we had to try them. That was followed by a satisfying ice cream cone. Can't get any more American than that!
On the way back to Blue Mesa we took a "short-cut" which brought
us through open-range territory where cows and bulls roam free. A few of them decided we were invading their space and blocked the road. All-in-all it was a enjoyable holiday!

We left for Colorado Springs on July 6th to meet our daughter's flight. Jennifer decided a little R & R was in
order since she gave us the news a couple of weeks ago that we're expecting our first grandchild in February.
Gotta get used to that one! The area around Colorado Springs has numerous places to visit and the city itself is surrounded by the Rocky Mountains.

Hightlights while in the area were:

We took a thrilling ride ascending 3,000 feet up to Cripple Creek which is an old 1800's gold-mining town they've replaced with casinos (just can't seem to get away from them) We got our "Starbuck's Fix" in Woodland Park and enjoyed great barbeque at "Notorious Nick's in a small town called Divide,Colorado.

Our friends, Davvie and Bernie Ruble invited us to visit them at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.
They're staying at the campground on the base. We enjoyed an interesting tour and some good company all while
discussing our travel plans. Jen left for Houston on Sunday afternoon and tomorrow we move on to the Denver area for our routine RV maintenance at Freightliners.

After an overnight stop in Cheyenne, Wyoming at the Flying J off I-25, we decided to take scenic route 130 outside of Laramie which promised majestic views of the Medicine Bow National Forest. Our intentions were to head west toward Montana but problems with our air brake pressure forced us to return to Cheyenne. While awaiting an appointment we enjoyed the sights including the Cheyenne Botanical Gardens.