Newsletter 3 - May 2013

The Post offices here are hard to find. They are always away from the town shops and shopping centres and tend to be on the edge of town with plenty of land and parking area around. We seem to be past them before we see them and they are not usually signposted. Other than that, stamps can be bought at the supermarket – they don’t always have them. In the country, for mail delivery, you will see up to thirty different boxes some supported on a wooden frame at the beginning of the road. 

Modern day Pony Express

Mail is delivered by little vans, and letter boxes in suburbia are grouped. You have your own key to open your box and the box to post. So we can’t use these and have to find a PO to post mail. We are not posting many postcards.

Neighbourhood mail boxes

The trip up the West Texas plains was cross country on good secondary roads – not a lot of traffic. We left Houston at 45 ft above sea level and by the time we got to Abilene we were about 2000 ft. Lubbock (birthplace of Buddy Holly) is 3000ft and the next night in Amarillo we were more than 4000ft above sea level.  We finally got to try a Whataburger in Lubbock, which is more like an "real" hamburger than the McDonald's style.

What a burger! The only thing lacking was beetroot, pineapple and a fried egg.

We hadn’t noticed the climb as most of the country looked flat. It seemed to get drier and drier – some cattle, and it seemed water was subterranean and pumped up by windmills as we didn’t see any dams. Also there were lots of areas where Pump Jacks were bringing up the oil.

Jack pumps are probably a lot more productive than crops?

These are all over Texas.  A couple would be nice.

North of Amarillo was lots of cropping (mainly corn, some cotton) with huge centre pivoted irrigators making gigantic circles on the landscape. We could never get above them for a photo as the land was so flat. The “circles” must be interesting from the air.

On the road to Colorado

We crossed the top corner of New Mexico and big snow topped mountains came into view, but the countryside was still very dry and like dessert. Mesas and hills grew gradually and a “perfectly” shaped volcano, Mt Capulin, surrounded with black lava flows and ash was not far from the Highway.

Capulin Volcano

We followed the railway for hundreds of miles. We counted the carriages of one goods train, 120 plus two diesels at the back and two at the front.

A long train coming

There are always places we would like to go but the RV can be a bit restrictive. Turning it around needs a lot of space and multi-storied carparks are totally out of the question. So smaller towns always appeal to us. 

Downtown Trinidad Colorada

Avenue of state flags at Trinidad Colorado

Trinidad, just over the border into Colorado was one of these. There were some lovely old buildings, built when it was a big coal producing area in the mid 1800s. 

Miner's Memorial Trinidad Colorado

 Nearby we camped in the State Park before heading off on the scenic Highway of Legends in the morning.

Another 10,000ft pass

Farley Overlook on the Highway of Legends

On the Highway of Legends

We saw deer, turkeys, mountains capped in snow, lakes with lots of fishermen, interesting rock formations and little villages with 100 year old stone buildings. Another city was Pueblo. 

Prince Charming waiting for the show to start at Pueblo Colorado

Riverwalk Pueblo Colorado

The Arkansas River flooded the centre of town ruining most buildings in 1921.  Now the river is re-routed and small barges take the tourists around the Riverwalk area, with cafes, bronze statues, fountains and water spouts to entertain children during the hot summers here.

A very new large building is the National Headquarters for

A tough way to make a living

Professional Bull Riders (PBR), and they are establishing a type of university to train promoters, gate-openers, bull riders, time keepers and rodeo clowns, as the sport is expanding in Brazil, Mexico, Canada and Australia.

That afternoon we drove to have a look at the Royal Gorge Suspension Bridge across the Arkansas River.

Royal Gorge Suspension Bridge and associated attractions

It was spectacular, across the deep canyon, but it didn’t go anywhere and was built as “a tourist spot” with amusement park activities – soaring eagle zip lines (flying fox), aerial trams, sky coaster etc. We camped that night looking out to snow covered mountains.

So a little further north is Colorado Springs with The Garden of the Gods, an area of evergreens with awe inspiring ancient red sandstone rock formations, given to the city as a park.

Garden of the Gods - overview

Garden of the Gods internal drive

You can drive/cycle through it, with picnic areas and lots of hiking trails where you can view the formations up close.

Garden of the Gods - balancing rock

There are many tourist spots in this area and the small town of Manitou Springs at the base of Pikes Peak is one.

Manitou Springs

Manitou Springs buskers

We planned to go up the mountain on the cog railway, and waited until the next morning to see what the weather was like before we booked. We had a very enjoyable morning climbing about 8000 ft from the town to the Peak with deep snow and cold winds at the top.

Manitou Springs terminal for the Pikes Peak cog railway

The track up the peak

Pikes Peak terminal

One of 25 peaks above 14,000ft in Colorado

Mule deer sited on the way down the mountain

Denver, offers all those activities big cities do, art, theatre, museums, public buildings and historical buildings etc but there are so many places to go for a day’s trip out of the city.

Nice Sunday drive through Denver

We arrived on a Sunday so there was no problem driving through the city on the six lane Interstate- in fact that’s better than taking ring roads. We planned to travel the Peak to Peak Scenic Byway which goes “up close and parallel” to the Continental Divide.

There were not too many places we could pull over as it went through the gorge (sheer cliffs) following the river, and then up onto the mountains at about 8000 ft, through old gold mining towns and national forests. We camped that night at Estes Park, just out of Rocky Mountains National Park with views in all directions.

Connie in the snow near Rainbow Curve

The highest road pass over the Rockies (just over 12,000ft) was still closed but we were able to drive up to Rainbow Curve (10,600ft) with the occasional snow flurry as the high clouds raced overhead and the sun came out in between.

A couple of intrepid travelers at another overlook in the Rocky Mountains National Park

The views were breathtaking.

A couple of nights in Fort Collins gave us a chance to shop, wash, fix a couple of minor problems and plan the next part of the trip, Wyoming, Teton and Yellowstone.