A trip journal

It's been a long time since I've written. Shame on me! I'm motivated now to use this forum to write a trip journal. This particular trip is motivated by a chance to get together with Ann & Al (John's sister and brother-in-law) and Gin & Jim (John's cousin and spouse). Gin made our reservations at the Kelly Place B&B near Cortez, CO, based on our recommendation after our Elderhostel there in April 2006.

We left home on Saturday, 7 April, and headed west. We stopped in Jonesboro, AR, that night. Then headed toward a planned stop in Wichita, KS, on Sunday night. Along the way, we drove through West Plains, MO, where Flo Jean and Eva Jane grew up. FJ had told us how to find her house. We did without problem, and took some pictures. It's a neat old white Victorian, but the town has changed quite a bit, I'm sure, since they left.

From there, we headed through Springfield, MO. In the area just west of there, the devastation to the trees from last January's ice storm was incredible. It looked almost like tornado damage, except it was such a huge area. What a shame! We drove on some rural county roads through the rest of Missouri, then got on a major US highway in Kansas.

A great treat in Wichita was the chance to meet up with a long-time SeniorNet buddie, Shirley (Tisie) Stallard. We originally met on an Alaska travel discussion board, and she suggested I start reading SeniorNet. That was in about 1998. But this was the first time we had met face-to-face. We had a great time - laughed and laughed. See the picture. We had seen lots of grass/brush fires along the highway east of Wichita. Shirley explained that they were burning off the dead stubble and weeds to freshen the fields for the new year.

Monday morning, we headed our across western Kansas and eastern Colorado. Nothing exciting - just a long, long drive. We spent last night in Pueblo, CO.

Today was to be our Colorado "touristing" day - and boy, did we get a lot! We headed west out of Pueblo shortly before 8, and got into some rain showers and some snow flurries. Then the sun broke through, as we got into the foothills. We got some great photos of the sun shining on the mountains with the dark clouds behind and overhead. We even saw a couple of rainbows. We drove on over the Wet Mountains into the Wet Mountain Valley, then turned south toward Gardner. At Gardner, we turned into a dirt county road, and headed south. After a few miles, we noticed new snow on the trees and ground - then on the road - then lots more on the road. As we climbed toward Pass Creek Pass, the snow on the road got deeper and deeper. John finally lost traction and had to stop. The snow was probably about 6" deep. We found a driveway for a safe turnaround - and did so, heading back north to a paved road. Then we drove from Gardner back south to LaVeta. And all this was before lunch.

After lunch in LaVeta, we headed on west. The wind had gotten fierce, but the sun was shining brightly. As we drove to LaVeta Pass, the wind was buffeting the car, and we were getting pelted by gravel and/or sand. Finally as we headed down the pass, we realized that it really was a sand/dust storm - a lot coming from Great Sand Dunes Nat'l Monument.

What a day! We were glad to stop for the day about 3 p.m. in Alamosa. The wind never did slack off - it just kept getting colder. After supper, I did some laundry, so we'll have clean clothes for tomorrow to head for Cortez to meet up with the group for our week at Kelly Place.