08/22/06 - Road Trip to Colorado via Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Kansas & Missouri with Dziamaarsky & Kayla (Part 1) (Part 2)
When we left off Part 1 we had reached Colorado; but headed to Cheyenne, Wyoming because Colorado didn't sell alcohol on Sundays.
So we went to Wyoming and stopped at the first place we saw...a highway side gas station, bar and liquor store. Kayla went to the washroom and I wondered around trying to find the liquor store. I walked into the bar and looked confused, a barkeep and his one patron looked at me and the barkeep asked if I needed help. I asked where the liquor store was, and he replied, "I am the liquor store, what do you need?" and pointed at a sign with prices. So I bought a case of High Life off the bartender (that he gathered up from the cooler) and headed on my way to a night of enjoyment of High Life.
When we woke up in Cheyenne, we needed to get the Jetta an oil change and thought the Grease Monkey would be a fine choice...
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So Dziamaarsky & I went for a walk for some breakfast while Kayla waited for the car. En route to breakfast, we spotted this mean 420 rooftop graffiti.
Anyway...
When we finished breakfast, we got back just in time to watch the Grease Monkey employee hit the bikes on the garage door...jarring them loose and scratching the top of the Jetta. Also, back in time to find out that they told Kayla she needed a new air filter; but since she didn't know any better, she got it.
Nicely done Grease Monkey; you bastards.
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Wyoming gave us negativity at the Grease Monkey, but we couldn't complain about the weather.
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We drove Wyoming interstate for about an hour and the views were spectacular.
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A Wyoming view much like Northern Ontario.
(Except that the rock types are different)
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We drove on the interstate for over an hour to come here: Bosler, Wyoming.
A large ghost town in Southeastern Wyoming; the product of the interstate changing paths and leaving Bosler behind. This picture is particularly interesting because every sign in Wyoming had the town name, population and elevation...note how Bosler has no population.
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Bosler had about 3 or 4 abandoned homesteads and we took a look inside a couple.
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Peeling paint and forgotten appliances.
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The stairs seemed relatively safe, so I took a look upstairs and found a small living space & the attic.
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A stove top and natural light.
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The next homestead was actually boarded up and provided much less light. A look inside with natural light.
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The dinner table was set as if the residents would come home any minute.
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"Farm Bankruptcies Reported Increasing"
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Child artwork left behind.
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Clothes still hung in the closet.
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A bullet I found on the table.
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Fairly old television...we rarely urbex houses in Detroit...so it was interesting to see some of these items.
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The kitchen, while messy, looked like it could be cleaned up and used...all the necessary appliances sat abandoned.
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The shed out back was a bicycle (and tire) graveyard....
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The yard was a vehicle graveyard.
A trio of abandoned trucks sits in the Wyoming sun.
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An old Mercury.
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A host of old cars even older then the preceding.
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A look inside one of the old cars reveals an old dial and bed springs for seats.
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A Grand Prix and a Camaro.
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Lounging.
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Next we went to take a look at the abandoned elementary school: Bosler Consolidated.
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Behind the school was even more abandoned cars: an old gremlin...
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...and even an old Benz.
Anyway, while looking at this stuff behind the school, some irate trailer dweller came over and asked Kayla if she knew us (Kayla refused to jump the fence and sat at the road), then wheeled over in his pickup truck and told us that he owns the town and we can take pictures from the road...but not on the property.
Since we had our share of Bosler anyway, we dipped out real smooth and easy.
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Because of depth perception problems Dziamaarsky kept pointing at mountains and expressing his desire to climb them. Once he pointed at a reasonable one that we could actually climb, I gave in and stopped with Kayla sleeping.
So we climbed the Northern Wyoming giant and Dziamaarksy enjoyed the High Life.
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The mountain did offer a nice view though.
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The Jetta and Kayla sit at the road.
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I liked the composition of this picture for some reason.
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We found these cow bones upon walking back to the car.
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We continued our trip into Colorado and its spectacular views.
We got hungry and stopped at a McDonald's that had a pretty good mural...including a prairie dog bogarting some fries...
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...and Ronald McDonald riding off into the sunset...
Also of note; I ordered a club sandwich at this McDonalds, only to find it laden with mayonaisse. So I scrapped it off on a spoon and placed it on my tray. Basically the size of a pool ball of mayonaise. Well, Kayla & Dziamaarsky came together with $4 american and I ate it anyway. It was quite disgusting.
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With it getting late into the night we drove into the mountains. After seeing a place with cottages, we decided to spend the night....of course with some original Coors.
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I woke up in the morning to find quite the beautiful backyard at the cottage.
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A fish in the backyard stream.
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I took off my socks and went for a stroll in the stream. The water was extremely cold though...I can't imagine there's swimming here at any point in the year.
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A look inside our cottage. Dziamaarsky wasn't happy about the TV, but I wasn't about to miss baseball scores when in the thick of a fantasy baseball crown.
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I took a walk over to this bridge near the cottage and saw this pool.
While this looks extremely fun, I could barely stand my feet in the water, so I don't know about getting my body into this...
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We left the cottage and headed into the town of Estes Park.
Dziamaarsky wasn't pleased with eating Mexican for breakfast and I added to this saltiness with ordering a mango smoothie.
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Estes Park, Colorado.
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We spent the day in Rocky Mountain State Park seeing by far the biggest mountains of the trip.
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Dziamaarsky and I sat down and waited for Kayla to gussy up. While we sat, this little fellow joined us.
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Rocky Mountain State Park views...
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Signage greeting us on our way to the Alluvial Fan path.
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Waterfalls...
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An explanation of the area and the flood that caused it.
Paraphrased, there was a dammed river and the dam broke. This released a large flood water that moved large rocks outward into a fan (alluvial fan) shape and created the waterfalls.
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A look down the waterfall.
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Myself in front of the falls for a size reference.
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Ever since first year Geology I've enjoyed examining rocks and trying to figure out what they are composed of.
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After seeing the alluvial fan, we decided to take a 9 mile road that would bring us to a 14,000 ft mountain top.
Along the way we found this waterfall and explored it for a bit.
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4 miles into the road we stopped to take some pictures of the mountains around us.
Here we can see a rockslide behind Dziamaarsky.
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Rain soaked us most of the drive...but we couldn't have asked for a better day in the mountains.
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I bought a memory card in Colorado and it acted as a catalyst to my picture taking skills.
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Another look at the mountains surrounding us.
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I spotted this fluffy, big fellow in the mountain trees - a Stellar Jay.
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Dziamaarsky continued his tradition of drinking mountaintop with a Fat Tire.
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Higher into the mountains and past the tree line, we reached an area reminiscent of Iceland.
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Including Ice Caps in August.
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Kayla sent me a picture of her in Iceland.
Tundra may be my favorite land cover type.
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Looking off into the distance you could see the definitive tree line - the areas where trees can't survive because the warmest month doesn't have a mean temperature over 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
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Heading down the mountains we spotted a herd of elk.
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I particularly enjoyed watching this male elk rough up this tree with his antlers.
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Dziamaarsky and Kayla enjoyed a spandex-clad mountain biker passed us on the highway down.
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Only half a day was spent in the mountains because of time restraints and us heading to Denver to see the Rockies play at Coors Field.
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A panoramic view of Coors Field.
On the left side of the picture you can faintly make out a purple line in the upper seats denoting where the stadium seats are that are above a mile high in elevation.
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A look over at what they call the "Rock Pile" a section of $4 seats where I'm sure there's plenty of drunkeness. We thought about it, but decided not to sit over there...
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We opted to sit in the left field bleachers. In retrospect, maybe we should have sat somewhere better; but whatever.
Also, the seats were terrible to sit in for 9 innings.
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A look at the Coors Field scoreboard.
Coors Field gets a negative here as something important would happen (pitcher change, inning end) and you would look up to see advertisements or other garbage. Definitely not as good as Comerica's.
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Coors Field gets a plus here though, they had a scoreboard displaying the pitch type and pitch count...definitely something that Comerica needs.
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Coors Field had very few servers, but they had this crazy bastard who insulted people and had a cell phone so you could call him if you needed a beer.
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Overall Coors Field was a nice ballpark.
Pros: Cheap Coors drinks, imported beer, beautiful ballpark, pitcher scoreboard a positive.
Cons: Grandstand seating, very few people walking around serving you.
7/10
It did make me appreciate how good Comerica is though.
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That night and most of the next day was spent driving home. We did stop in the afternoon to ride the skatepark in Shawnee, Kansas.
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Hang over toothpick down the perfect rail I've been looking for.
And yes, I know I need to man up and do this down a real rail.
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The Shawnee Kansas skatepark also had this thing. Although I don't ride things like this very often, it was fun as hell.
Ps. Dziamaarsky was going about a foot higher than me.
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The rest of the trip was spent driving constantly all night to make it home so I could get to work. I was extremely impressed with St.Louis - it looked like Detroit 10 years ago...I just wish that we could have seen it at a slower speed than 70 mph on the freeway.
Overall, for all the predictions of the trip going horrible; we had a great time...well at least I did.
Navi
JurajKolnikIsElite@Gmail.com
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