Rocky Mountain High (The John Denver Kind)

Driving through the Rockies was pretty breathtaking.  Pictures can't even do it justice.    

 

The Mile High City

On Sunday we drove through the rest of Kansas and headed west into Colorado.  Over the course of the road trip we played the classic road trip staple, the license plate game, and we were particularly excited to start seeing Colorado plates and stop seeing Kansas plates for a change.  After six long days of driving we recorded 37 out of 50 states.  I know what you're thinking.  No, we never did see Alaska or Hawaii.  Believe me I was on the lookout.  

The further we drove into Colorado the prettier the clouds got, and the sky was quite blue. 

  

Then we spotted the Rocky Mountains!  That never gets old, the first sight of the mountains.  I'm convinced that I was made to live in the mountains, maybe the Blue Ridge, but the Rockies sure are breathtaking.  It felt silly to take any pictures, no photo can do justice for something so grand.  We enjoyed the view until we reached the busy streets around Denver and had to focus on navigating our way to Aunt Janet & Uncle Matthew's house (blindly trusting the GPS is more like it).  We made it safely to Colorado, the sixth state of the trip, where the Walworth's fed us and let us play with their their dog Porter and cats Admiral & Nelson.  Thank you J&M for a wonderful visit and an awesome home cooked dinner!      

Best Guy Ever

Each day of driving started with Tyler cleaning off all of the dead bugs and road dust so I could take clear pictures through the windows.  He's basically the best guy ever!

Missouri to Kansas

Day two of our road trip began by driving west through St. Louis on the way to Oakley, KS.  My favorite movie of all time is Meet Me in St. Louis with Judy Garland, it's the one movie that I can watch over & over & over, so naturally being in St. Louis meant that I had to sing the theme song real loud.  Then I played the movie soundtrack on the ipod.  Tyler is so patient.
Tyler: "It's true. She sang the whole thing, only partially in key, but with twice the heart of those in the film. Too cute"

 We crossed over the Missouri River.

Then we stopped at Ozarkland, where they sell some of the finest kitsch in the state of Missouri.  We were lured in by their promise of t-shirts, moccasins, fireworks, and fresh fudge.  We left with one of those things (hint: it was either fireworks or fudge).  This is Tyler doing his best hillbilly tourist impression.  When we were driving through Kansas City, Missouri I had to play (and sing) the Beatles version of Kansas City - Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!.  I do some of my best singing in the car.         

We ran into some awful weather in Kansas.  I was supposed to do the easy driving on the flat stretches of highway and ended up driving through the worst of the rain before we switched and Tyler took over.  He is a really good driver.  So while Tyler drove, which was most of the trip, I worked on my inspiration book.

 
Everyone we know who has driven through Kansas has told us that it is flat and boring, which is mostly true.  Kansas also has gorgeous rolling hills and prairie landscapes of subtle yellows and blues.  I took lots of photos thinking that Kansas will be perfect inspiration for some future landscape watercolor paintings.

 The highway view from our hotel room in Oakley, KS

Goodbye Ohio

Last Friday morning Tyler & I took off for California in our strategically packed-to-the-brim little Ford Fusion, complete with roofbag and so many snacks.  We left from Tyler's house in Wellington, OH, hugged our families, made some coffee breaks, waved to our Columbus family and friends as we passed our favorite city (hope you guys saw us waving!), we danced to Girl Talk in the car, I sang all of my favorite Hanson songs to Tyler until he made me stop, and we enjoyed the October colored Ohio trees one last time.

To pass the time on the many many drives back & forth from Northeast Ohio to Columbus during the college years, we came up with a game which we refer to as Letter Challenge.  We spot two letters as inspiration and then come up with as many word combos as we can using those letters, the funnier the better.  Until it becomes too annoying to continue.  Here's our best work from the RB letter challenge:

Rabid beagles, really bad, red buttcheeks, rockin backpack, rolling badlands, restroom bathroom, representin Bulgaria, ripe bananas, read books, raspy breather, rich babies, rotund belly, real butter, repetitive bowling, row boater, rap beats, Russian Bolsheviks, raw blueberries, and quite a few more too dumb to mention.

We joked about how we "visited" Ohio for twenty-three years.  Thanks for having us Ohio, we will always be Ohioans!  It  was a pretty life-shaping visit and we look forward to coming back as often as possible.

After Ohio we drove through Indiana, boyhood home of our friends Jake Murray and Abe Lincoln.  In Indiana we passed a big building that looked like a candle, and lots of corn & soybean fields.  Tyler & I decided that if we were in charge of transportation in the USA our first order of business would be to put awesome stuff along the highways for entertainment value.  Example, look at that giant ________ (insert food, body part, or animal) Tyler added that all giant roadside animal statues should be in attack position.  It was a long drive.   

Indianapolis

Illinois felt like it went on forever.  But finally we arrived at Chuck & Barbara's house just outside of St. Louis right around dinnertime, our first stop of the road trip.  They fed us an amazing dinner followed by an amazing breakfast (it's incredible how fast you get tired of fast food and look forward to real blueberry pancakes).  We were so lucky to have such kind and welcoming family to stay with throughout the trip!