Well, I'm sitting here in Odessa, Missouri (30 miles east of Kansas City) at the same campground we stopped at on July 4th, 3 months ago, the second stop on our trip. By the way, Welcome To Kansas City!
I think we can draw a few conclusions from this.
1. We are clearly on our way home and our trip is almost over!
2. "We done good" for a couple of rookie RVers. We had a very general plan to be out about 3 months and a general idea of a route that we thought would work, but we did not make a single reservation in advance of more than a few days and "winged" the whole trip. There were a couple of times we were almost desperate for a place to stay close to where we wanted to be but it always worked out.
3. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good! The 3 month thing - we have 2 more days of travel and should be home on Tuesday which will be October 3rd, EXACTLY 3 months since we left on July 3rd. I think that might be a little bit of luck though because we darn sure didn't plan for that to be 3 months to the day!
Anyhow, a little closure on our last stop in Colorado. If you recall, cold temps, wind, and rain (mostly rain) were hampering our CO adventures and that did not stop at Colorado Springs. After not getting to ride the #1 motorcycle ride (San Juan Skyway out of Durango), I was determined to ride the #2 ride which is west and northwest of Denver which would have been another 2-day overnight trip. Well that didn't work out either. We stayed in Colorado Springs for 5 days and ended up with 2 days of sort of decent weather. On one of those days, I had about 6 hours of good weather forecast so I developed my own 183-mile ride to try and keep me in the valleys because of cold temps and a very low overcast at the higher elevations. I included a stop on the Arkansas River since we lived aboard "Help Me Rhonda" on the river at Three Forks Harbor in Muskogee, OK for 2 and 1/2 years. I knew the river originated in Colorado and I found a good spot about 100 miles downstream of the origin to take a look. Looking north and south below. For those not familiar, it's a good bit bigger than this down at the lower end where it dumps into the Mississippi River! It's a major waterway with lots of barge traffic as far inland as Catoosa, OK (almost to Tulsa).
Those are the only pictures I took - just wanted to enjoy the ride with the short amount of time I had. Somehow in my planning for the ride though, I had missed one thing. As I was about 2/3 through the ride, I began to notice aspens turning yellow, the temps getting colder, and the wet overcast getting closer to my head??? All three of those made sense when I saw the sign for "Wilkerson Pass - 9507 feet." It was wet and very cold for about an hour but at least I got a ride in before leaving Colorado.
On the other "sort of decent weather day" we decided to tour what you could see of the Air Force Academy. You think I'm kidding about the weather? Here's probably the most photographed structure there, the chapel.
That's not a bad picture. It's just cold wet fog all the way to the ground. But the inside was pretty. Coincidentally, the couple in the photo are from Alabama and live about 20 miles from us!
Pipe organ at the back.
The cross was simple but beautiful and had an aerodynamic winged look to it, and I don't say that in any way to minimize the significance of the cross. Just thought it was an interesting coincidence, probably even planned that way. Get it? Aerodynamic, WINGed - Air Force Academy?
A visitor to the Air Force Academy does not have access to much of the campus (mainly the visitor center and the chapel), so we checked out the info there including an informative video about a cadet's time at the academy, took what few pictures we could and headed to "The Garden Of The Gods" - a drive-thru city park that is probably pretty impressive if you could see it. Again the weather was a problem.
It was kind of like "Valley Of Fire" (in Las Vegas) with trees (and fog).
So, we missed Pikes Peak (nothing to see at that altitude but clouds and lots of snow) and a few other possibilities, but like I said previously, we have really been blessed on this trip with safety and great weather except for Colorado. Driving across Kansas was sort of dull and boring so I think I'll close it down here.
We have had a wonderful time, thankful for the opportunity, the safe travels, and the memories. We bought magnets when they were available to help with that memory thing!
We are also glad that many of YOU, our family and friends, joined us - thanks for your interest and comments. I will probably put some stats and lessons learned together later, but for now we are a bit tired, ready to be home. Hey we only covered 19 states, 3 time zones, 11,624 truck miles (towing and sightseeing), and 3572 motorcycle miles!!!!!
So long for now.
Love y'all! Life is good. Thank you, Lord.
Wayne and Rhonda
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