Vacation

I think my mom would have loved to travel given the opportunity to do so.  I know when her sister, Anne, went out west, mom anticipated the post cards that seemed to come to the house fairly regularly.  I still have those post cards, tied in a ribbon, just as mom saved them.  And, yes, I've read them.

Well, Alan and I just went out West, again.  The first time we tried a road trip of such a length, Alan got sick and spent a good deal of the time in one hospital or another.  It was the beginning of trips we were to take where he would end up in a hospital or ship's infirmary every single time, until this trip.

Yes, we actually made it around the circle and my dear husband didn't even feel ill.  Me?  We won't go there, but I didn't end up in a hospital.

We tried to keep the drive-time each day at around six hours.  We didn't always accomplish that, but we tried.  Now, drive-time is not time from hotel to hotel.  It's time in the car, driving.  I did all the driving, except for one day.  I decided Alan should try to drive.  There was little traffic on the freeway, and he really wanted to drive.  Alan can't feel anything in the bottoms of his feet so depressing the accelerator and brake are sudden.  Anyway, he took the wheel.  Fifteen minutes later I was back at being the driver.

He ran off the edge of the road -- you know when you're doing that on a freeway because of the rumble strip along the edge.  He ran off the edge of the road 8 times in 15 minutes.  Too many run-offs for me, so I told him to stop the car.  After that he counted how many times I went off to the right or left.  Once in six hours.

We started in Hannibal, Missouri.  Mark Twain's town.  Becky Thatcher's town.  Huckleberry Finn's town.  Tom Sawyer's town.  It is NOT a tourist trip.  In fact nothing is flaunted in Hannibal, MO.  It has a nice main street, little traffic, one or two good restaurants, a couple of candy stores, and typical Midwest homes.  It was enjoyable, but I had my fill after a few hours.

We then drove to Estes Park, Colorado so that Alan could attend his school reunion.  He had a wonderful time getting together with people he hadn't seen in 50 years.  Yes, that's correct.  50 years.
Estes Park is beautiful and the mountains are -- well, they're mountains.  Not like the Smokies.  These are MOUNTAINS.  Until you've seen the Rockies, you can't imagine high mountains.  We stayed at 7,000 feet.  The air was a little thin and walking was a matter of huffing and puffing from one place to the next. 

From Estes Park we went down to Pegosa Springs, Colorado, still in Rocky Mountain country.  Pegosa Springs is a town well visited by the characters of Louis L'Amour's novels and I wanted to go there and on to Mesa Verde, Durango, Dolores, and other towns mentioned in L'Amour's novels.

From Pegosa Springs we went down to Albuquerque, New Mexico.  I liked this place the most.  Mountains?  Yes.  Different coloring though.  And Old Albuquerque was very interesting.  We hired a pedalcar driver and he told us some of the history of Albuquerque.  As he passed the buildings he pointed out which was a brothel, which was a saloon (there was a difference I suppose), which was a school, etc.  There were a lot of brothels and saloons in old Albuquerque, in the days of the cowboys and cattle herds. 

I hope to have pictures to put up on Facebook of the trip, which had nothing to do with Runnemede, but this is my BLOG and I can insert personal items from time to time if I want to.

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