It was fairly early in the morning when @mrsbozz and I pulled out of North Platte Nebraska. I have a couple regrets about Nebraska, mainly just things that might have been cool to see which we didn't have time for. I guess that's a good thing because it gives me a reason to go back one day.
I forgot to mention this, but just outside our hotel in North Platte there was a Pump & Pantry gas station. We passed several of these on our travels along with a couple of other chains like Casey's and Kum & Go (sounds dirty right?). After leaving the brewery the night before, we stopped to get gas and some snacks at this Pump & Pantry. I started pumping gas while my wife tried to go inside the store to buy something.
We were very shocked to find that the store was closed. The only reason I point this out is because in Michigan if the store is closed, you usually can't pump gas either. That wasn't the case here and also at at least one other place we stopped on our travels, so that must be a more common thing in the middle of the country.
It wasn't long before we were in Colorado. As I mentioned before, the first two hours or so of Colorado is pretty miserable. It can be a bit hilly, but mostly it is just miles and miles of scrub brush like you see here.
@mrsbozz did do a great job as my photographer while I was focusing on driving and I wanted to share some more of her shots.
I still haven't been able to fully teach her about the different between optical zoom and digital zoom. I have a feeling even I tried she would lose interest pretty quick and her eyes would roll into the back of her head. I give her an A for effort though. This was a really great shot that got a bit dodgy when she tried to zoom in on the train.
It's a me problem, not a her problem.
As I said, there isn't a whole lot going on in the first half of Colorado. You hear Colorado and you probably immediately think mountains. In fact, the mountains don't really come into play until you are just about a half hour outside of Denver.
Before you get to that point, it's mostly just a lot of what you see above, if not quite that green.
Through the later part of Iowa and most of Nebraska, we kept coming across these old windmills sitting in the middle of fields. Some of them were in pretty good condition like they had been rehab'ed in the last ten to twenty years. Some of them looked like they were on their last leg.
I kept pointing them out to @mrsbozz hoping she could snag a picture of one, but I was always a bit too late and she was never able to grab a great shot. Until the one you see above. This was actually on our way out of Colorado, but she finally got a shot of one!
It might not seem like a big deal to you, but there was something about these old windmills that tugged at my mind. Perhaps it was just the long hours on the road, but I couldn't help but think of a time long long ago when pioneers were first settling these areas. Building windmills to pull water from the ground for their livestock.
It might seem like a simple windmill to you, but there was something really humbling about it for me. Even though the original homestead may have been long gone or moved to a different location, these windmills still stood as a memorial to those who tamed this land (let's just look past the fact that they probably stole it from the Native Americans for now).
We also passed a couple of really large cattle farms. I mean huge! My aunt and uncle used to keep cows on their farm, but these places are massive. I don't think I have ever seen so many cows in one place at the same time. It was crazy!
That last photo above really sums up well what I thought the entire drive was going to be like. As I have said, I was pleasantly surprised that wasn't the case at all.
Finally, just outside of Denver, @mrsbozz had just woken up from a nap and I found myself squinting at the horizon. I couldn't tell if I was seeing clouds or mountains. The conversation went something like this:
Me - "I think those are mountains ahead
Her - "where?"
Me - "on the horizon there"
Her - "No, those are just clouds"
Me - "are you sure? I think they are mountains"
Of course as we got closer, it became pretty evident that they were in fact mountains or at the very least foothills of the Rockies. We contacted @mrsbozz's sister and our nieces to see where they wanted us to meet them. They picked a local place called The Bluebird Cafe that looked absolutely amazing. We had already eaten so we didn't order food, but the food they ordered looked phenomenal.
They had flown into Denver with one of my nieces softball teammates, so after they said their goodbyes, we all piled into the rental Ford Explorer and tried to kill some time before we could get into the rental house. Their friends were spending a couple of days up in Breckenridge before the softball tournament started. We arrived in Denver on Saturday and games weren't scheduled to start until the next Wednesday, so that gave us a ton of time to be tourists!
We found a local outlet mall and walked around there while the young ladies stopped into this shop or that shop. There was a tool shop at the mall that I probably could have spent a lot of money at if I had more money and more room in our rental car to haul it all home!
Eventually, we found a grocery shore and got some items to get us through the first couple of days. My brother in law showed up shortly after that as he was driving separately with most of the girls luggage and equipment.
Right around 3:00 PM Colorado time we were able to get into the rental house.
More about that in a future post!
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