Day 9

If you ever plan on traveling coast to coast I reccomend going through Utah and then Colorado. You will be blown away by the majestic beauty of Utah but Colorado will take it to a higher level. Ice cold rapids of the Colorado river to the snow capped mountains in the Rockies. Can you believe it snow still sitting on the mountains? Doesn't the weather man know it's June? We drove through the "watch for falling rock" roads and saw even MORE wildlife, this time not so close :) we saw a long horned sheep, a bison, some elk, and our first rattle snake crossing (Let's just say that one ended badly). Driving through the mountains in Colorado are just unbelievable, add that to your must see before you die list. Also if you are a big hot chocolate fan, like myself, you should stop by the Eagle Diner in Eagle County, Colorado. It's a 50s style diner where Sandy would be more than happy to take care of you! Big shout out for lunch today, we went to our long time friends the Outhouses, Carol & Purdy, in Firestone, Colorado. BLT's are always great. With home grown tomatoes from their beautiful garden. It was great to see them after long time no see. [Little history lesson: Purdy taught me to swim when I was 4 at the Velvet Cloak Inn on Hillsbrough St.in Raleigh. He apparently did a great job because I have now been on the Raleigh Charter swim team for 2 years]. Now whenever you end lunch with warm, homemade, chocolate pudding you just know it's going to be a great day and that you've been taken care of by people who truly love ya. Big thanks!! We said our goodbyes to the outhouses and hit the road. And that's when we entered flat, cow country. Those beautiful mountains were in our rearview mirror & then suddenly gone altogether :( we've been staring at flat, grassy patches in Kansas for hours now. We can see at least 25 miles down the road. Saw some roadkill as we drove through farmland, we saw a dead deer. Now when I say that I could see for miles I mean it. There are no forests ANYWHERE so seeing a deer on the side of the road was bizzare. I guess when he tried to find what was on the other side it didn't turn out so good. Then the sadest roadkill of all. So you know when you first start driving and whenever you see a squirrel or bird you swerve or slam on the brakes to make sure you don't hit them? Well birds especially, I was told not to worry about them because they will always move, they can always spread their wings and then they're gone. So we're driving down the road when we see this bird trying to take flight. Then it looks like it's having a little trouble, it's in the air but this bird looks like it is doing flips. Then all of a sudden BAM! We got hit by this bird. No we didn't hit the bird, we got hit BY the bird. And now he was really doing flips. It was a sad encounter. We're going to continue to drive tonight and see how far we can get. One thing to remember when traveling cross country make sure to pack all sorts of different clothes because we hit humidity again and let's just say it's one of your worst nightmares if you only have jeans & a sweatshirt.
Song of the day: Thank You by Led Zeppelin
Fun fact: when triggered, a Venus flytrap closes in less than 100 milliseconds. It takes about 10 days for the trap to digest an insect. Surprised you didn't know that, huh?
More to come...