From My Mind to....

Home Safe

Jeanette and I did, in fact, arrive home last night at 11:35 pm, well after the daily deadline for the my Reviewing achievement. The sad part is that when I was preparing to travel TO Colorado, I did a couple reviews before leaving, and saved them in my Review Tool for when I would have Wi-Fi access, but little time. Unfortunately, we decided rather quickly to pack up and leave for home because of an incoming snowstorm. I didn't have the opportunity to bank a couple reviews.

Watching everyone in and around Crested Butte zipping along on snow-covered roads in their four-wheel drive vehicles--emphasis on zipping--was a bit daunting with me and my front-wheel drive Toyota.

We had tried going into town (about four miles away) after an inch and a half snowfall the first night we were there. The town and state does a great job of clearing the roads. But, a plow will not completely clean the rode; some snow (and ice) remains until the combination of sun and the work crews use of magnesium-chloride and sand puts the roads in the condition my humble Toyota can appreciate.

We made that first trip about from the house to the main road with a bit of sliding along the way. After seeing the main road was not much better, we turned around. The little ice we already experienced was not worth the piece of mind we would lose trying to drive to town. Four hours made all the difference, and we made it to town for some well deserved sight-seeing.

Coming home we made ... well, I made two tactical decisions. The first was to leave at 3:30 pm, which allowed us to drive only 180 miles before the dark forced me to stop for the night. Night driving is much harder for me these days. While we didn't get out of Colorado, we did make it over the Monarch Mtn. pass (more than 11,000 ft) to the considerably flatter plains of eastern Colorado.

The second decision was to drive the rest of the way home without stopping again for the night. That was more than 770 miles over a 15-hour period. Numerous stops were required, including a stop along side of the Arkansas River, from which Jeanette wanted a rock to bring home to her rock garden. Though we tried several places, we couldn't get close enough to the river through the snowy fields and steep banks. Sorry, Jeanette.

We stopped at Dodge City to check out the attractions. After getting a brochure of the layout of the attractions and seeing how much walking and time would be needed to "do the place right," we decided to make this a long weekend trip some time in June. The 42 deg temp and 24 mph winds helped make that decision an easy one.

Several hours of night driving in Kansas to reach I-44 at the Missouri line really upped my driving stress level and tightened my grip on the steering wheel. Much of the latter Kansas driving was two-lane with a few passing lanes sprinkled in. The four-lane, 70 mph I-44 was a welcome relief for the final two and a half hour drive.

I'm flying to my next vacation destination.