We just got back from Colorado and boy did we have an interesting trip!
Hubs left on his motorcycle with his friends several days before me and the wives were going to meet them. They wanted to do a big circle before our meet-up. Unfortunately my husband suffered with heat exhaustion after riding in the desert and had to come home and not ride his motorcycle for a week. Thankfully he was well after a few days and we were able to go on with our trip in the car and meet our friends.
We all met in Salida, Colorado. Salida is a beautiful little town in Southern Colorado where the Arkansas river comes down from the mountains. We had a lovely little lodge called The Loyal Duke (named after a 19th century spaniel dog). We stayed there with all our motorcycle friends from Tuesday through Saturday and had the best time. Our kids stayed with their grandparents and we did special stuff with them when we got back.
My biker hubs was really sad he couldn’t ride his bike, but he was glad to be in Colorado which was beautiful and 35 degrees cooler than our state!
Here is some stuff we saw and noticed on the road:
Lots of farm windmills- some stopped, some still going, most connected to troughs for animals, one connected to a water tank.
Crops grown in circles so the irrigation watering machines could reach them.
Baby swallows in nests at the rest stop.
A lone, huge, dormant volcano in the middle of the prairie in NM.
A beautiful red brick Victorian barn with arched windows in Trinidad, CO.
About 500 yards of Texas is in Mountain time lol.
A beautiful canyon road following the Arkansas river into Salida, CO
The absolute breathtaking beauty of Mountains all around us.
Deer, elk, bear, cattle, and horse & rider crossing signs.
A mile-long train of red boxcars- every one had beautiful graffiti
Mountains are so dark against the night sky and setting sun
Mule-deer everywhere
Antelope
Taking pictures while flying through the canyon highway!
Colorado mountains are sooo different from our mountains- so cold. They are so big they make their own weather!
Realizing how hot it was when I got back home- seriously hot.
Altitude sickness is real, thankfully I was a lot better this time (last time was awful including having horrible asthma attacks)
Using the canned oxygen we brought at St. Elmos- a ghost town with the elevation almost 10,000 ft above sea level. What a life-saver- I was so dizzy!
Feeling the Arkansas river in Salida and putting my feet in it- under 40 degrees F in June!
Led Zepplin is wonderful mountain music!
Our mountains are so different from Colorado mountains- ours are so hot and very much like “Picnic at Hanging Rock”
I was able to make so much art! My Art Toolkit was fantastic and allowed me to easily paint in the car and around the firepit at our lodge every night. In the car, I put my little nalgene water cup in the cupholder, unzipped my repurposed Rickshaw Molskine folio, opened it up and it became a desk. I qued up a photo I took of the landscape on my phone and flipped open my watercolor landscape book and started! My Art Toolkit palette held enough paint for my 6 day trip and it was so easy to hold. The same thing worked sitting in my camp chair around the fire. All our friends got together every night after riding and exploring all day and we sat around the fire sharing stories and laughter and chips and dip! I adored listening to stories while painting. If anybody had a special landscape picture I would try to paint it for them. I gave a lot of paintings away- It was great!
I loved Colorado, (everything but the high costs and politics) and was happy to be back, this time in better health! But it was nice to be home and to swim in my pool and hear the cicadas again. I cannot wait to travel again and use my setup. Next year we all plan on going to the Florida Keys!
With happy trails to you from Kansas Street,
-Jaime
Life on Kansas Street 