Golden, CO to Oakley, KS

September 16, 2013

Well the sun was shining this morning and we managed to get out of Golden. Interstate 70 was clear and traffic was light as a lot of businesses were closed due to the flooding.

We have dropped out of the mountains and back into the flat plains of eastern Colorado and Kansas, where you can see for miles and miles and miles!!

Tonight, we are in a campground in Oakley, KS that we have been in before, and swore we would not visit again, as there is a train track that runs a very loud and active train, about once an hour. Being old like we are, we forgot about our previous visit to the park and it’s train.

Not to worry, we have good drugs to put us to sleep and the C-pap machines to block out unwanted noises, so we are good.

From Silt to Golden, Colorado

September 14, 2013

On the road again…today we climbed many mountain passes, through the pouring down rain into Golden, Colorado.

Everywhere it’s possible for water to flow, it’s raging!

We came in on I-70, so we are south of Boulder, where the worst of the flooding is happening, but coming in we still saw smaller access roads with the foundations washed out from under them.

We have scheduled three nights here with the hopes of seeing Phils nieces, Letty and Libby. Fortunately, Letty and her husband live close by, so we are meeting them for dinner tomorrow night. Libby lives north of here in Fort Collins and all roads from there to here are under water or closed for wash outs, so it doesn’t look good for seeing Libby.

Bad news for the area is that more rain is predicted for the whole week end.

On the road to Silt, Colorado

Friday, September 13, 2013

On the road again today, and out early as we wanted to put some miles behind us today. We continued on I-70 heading east through the eastern half of Utah, where as always, we were impressed with the scenery! We stopped at several view points and took pictures.

We have been on this road before, so these pictures are duplicates, but we don’t care!!

Nebraska had Toadstools, Alberta had Hoo Doo’s, and Utah is not to be left out! They have their own version of the Hoo Doo’s, just a tad different than what we had seen before. But, the beauty was there! Lots more of Mother Nature’s art work today and we love it!!

Tonight we stayed in an old run down RV Park in Silt, CO, where most of the people had been there full time, for a very long time. But it was a full hook up site for the night, and better than a parking lot somewhere.

On the road through western Utah

September 12, 2013

We left Las Vegas this morning heading to Richfield, Utah to visit with friends Al and Debby Higgs. The temp was about 72 when we left this morning, when we stopped for lunch it was a cool and wet 68, with rain as we headed over the summit (7180’). 

The mountains in eastern Nevada and western Utah (on I-15) are dramatic,

at every turn the colors in the soil and rock are different, and depending on the light (clouds or bright sunlight), the rocks reflect differently.

We arrived in Richfield around 3:00pm and parked in Al and Debby’s driveway. We hadn’t seen them in a long while, so we had a lot of catching up to do. Debby had recently taken up knitting, so we talked a lot about that. They took us out for Mexican food (really good). It’s always great to visit old friends along the way!!

Las Vegas

September 9 – 11, 2013

We drove to Las Vegas on the 9^th, we are here to meet and visit with my cousin, Jack Manning and his family.

Jack and I met through the DNA profile page, we are fourth cousins. Jack was adopted when he was a baby, so he is trying to discover who his birth family is and I am trying to help. We had a wonderful visit, went out to dinner a couple of times with Jack’s wife, Cheryl and his twins, Nichol and Jamie.

We used one of our days to go out to Lake Mead and Hoover Dam, as I had never been. Could not believe how low the lake is!

Maximum water level for the lake is 1220’, right now it is at 1106’, that’s 114’! The marinas are struggling to keep the docks in the water. They did get some much needed rain while we were there.