Month: September 2010

It’s nearly time for this good thing to come to an end. Time to go back to work and help pay the bills. But before Monday arrives, we’ve still got some traveling to do.The trip from Durango to Estes Park (northwest of Denver) was quite long, but offered consistently beautiful mountain scenery. With the exception of the first day of this adventure, we haven’t seen a drop of rain. Crisp blue skies tend to help everything look better. Given that one of the main attractions in this road trip (and any Floodcation) is the scenery, the drive went by reasonably smoothly. Smooth enough that we decided to add on an extra 45 minutes by taking a scenic route up to Estes, rather than the Interstate through Denver and Boulder. The mountains near Durango looked a lot like the Canadian Rockies — big, rocky and gray with lots of green trees; the mountains in the middle were taller, but not quite as pretty. As we neared Rocky Mountain National Park, things started to look a bit more Canadian again. That’s always a good thing.

My sunrise jaunt out into the Monument Valley area was a nice teaser; after fueling up the car and our bellies, we set out again. We didn’t stop and get the full Navajo tour of the valley, but we did see quite a bit from the road. Amazing open country scenes; hopefully the people, the state and the country are able to preserve that openness for generations to come.

Yes, that 4:30 wake up call did come very early. Needless to say, we were up well before dawn.

Oh, the road. After a few quiet days of driving, relatively speaking, we’ve hit the road again. We’ve hit it hard.

Not wanting to deprive you of a great shot of a pair of Handsome Bearded Floods™, here you go. We went to the Hoover Dam today. Not to take anything away from the engineers, but … it’s a REALLY huge pile of concrete. Stops water, generates electricity. Everybody there seemed pretty happy about it.

The suspense has been killing you. Has Vegas drawn him in – has it won over the stubborn skeptic with it’s fast ladies and loose slots? The lights, the glitz, the glamor? (What does any of that mean anyway?)

Friday night, many, many miles from home. It’s been a long road to here, but so far a good one.