We left MO on monday morning and headed towards AZ. We had a " long way to go and a short time to get there" to imitate an old country song ! I seen this on the hillside in Kansas, it's a metal cutout of a steer & cowboy! I saw the first wildlife of the day! A fox running across the fields, one of many, many, many fields we seen going thru Kansas, Later that day we did a u-turn to go back and see a dead badger laying beside the rd., we figured at least we seen one! We kept a list of all the critters we seen and I was amazed at the list we had! I really wanted to see a bear in CO but that never happened.
Somehow I never seemed to have the right lens at the right time, We pulled over to take pictures of these cattle ! Taking pictures seems to run in the family, we had 3 rebels and a 40d along on our trip ! My Dad was great for pulling over to take pictures, yeah ! Btw check out the horns on these guys above ! We thought it might be hard to balance their heads.
My Dad drives truck and has always been fascinated by the barn above, however being in an 18 wheeler made it hard to stop in, so with the van this was his chance!
We drove in and met up with a genuine cowboy on his horse. He really didn't seem to know anything about the barn, much to our disappointment. He did allow us to walk arround it and take pictures though.
The barn was amazing and had beautiful stone work.
We found these neat carriages inside.
We arrived in Greensburg KS, where an f5 tornado had distroyed most of the town in 2007 during the night. check out this link
The town is slowly being rebuilt.
It was getting really dark and windy while we were there and we thought it almost looked like another tornado was coming ! We managed to stay ahead of the storm while driving !
Many of the trees have been replanted because of the severe damage .
Greensburg is also the home of the worlds largest hand dug well. We were able to look down thru the observation windows but could not see the bottom. It has a stair case leading down into it.
My adorable nephew who is sooo happy to be out of his car seat ! We let the children play at this park while they fueled up the van.
We ate supper in Dodge City, KS just before dark. I would have liked to spend more time there, it looked like an interesting city ! We started seeing the big feed lots as we drove into town. As we left Dodge I took several pictures of the sunset.They were taken thru the van window, but it was so beautiful I had to try anyway.
We stopped for the night after we crossed into CO.
CO scenery, we began to see lots of mulies ( mule deer).
Catching glimpes of the Rocky Mts. and driving on straight never ending roads.
Wild flowers beside the road.
We made it to the top of Wolf Creek Pass ! Our van was warm , because it's very high climb up to the top!
There was still snow up there! The air was chilly and a bit windy. Notice all the kiddo's running arround barefooted!. My brother Kevin climbed the hill on the other side of the road to find some 'clean' snow for the kiddo's . Joe had saved some Maple syrup from Crackerbarrel and poured that on the snow. Kiddo's loved it but soon started to shiver !
Beautiful scenery on Wolf Creek Pass!
Dillon wanted his picture taken with his barefeet but he was begging me to hurry up!
We were headed down this hill when we left the scenic overlook. It was a steep down hill drive with lots of switch backs in the road and runway truck ramps.
We pulled over at the bottom of the mt. to let our brakes cool off and take a look at these falls. Years before some of my family had stopped here and remembered feeding little chipmunks.
And sure enough, there were chipmunks there, eager to take our food !
A cute little one !
Opps, this picture is slightly out of order! This was coming down over the Mt. Notice the road and the sign!
We no sooner left the falls then Dad stopped again to take pictures of this awesome scenery!
Across the street from the view above. So beautiful !
More scenery of the CO Rockies.
We stopped in the San Luis Valley to visit a family that had just moved there from Kentucky. They had ties with some one from Dad & Mom's church, Anything in the San Luis valley that was green was irrigated in some way. You could see exactly where the water started in the fields. Can you imagine having those Majestic Mts in your backyard. Over to the extreme left is where Sand Dune National Park is located.
More of Colorado.
Late on Tues, afternoon we had to stop and take pictures of this magnificent Butte.
Trying to be a little artistic !
Just had to get that moon on this picture. The scenery was so gorgeous thru here! It was so different from our scenery here at home ! We drove all the way to Page Az. It was arround 11 when we got there but we got to meet Dave !!! Woo hoo after not having seen him for for 11 days, that was pretty special to the kids and I. We also wanted to be near the marina to pick up our boat the next morning =) Finally coming to the highlight of our trip! I know this was a long post but believe me when I say I had to really sort thru to narrow it down to these! Anyway be sure to check back for more updates ! The next one will be on our houseboat we rented on Lake Powell !
Greensburg is also the home of the worlds largest hand dug well. We were able to look down thru the observation windows but could not see the bottom. It has a stair case leading down into it. 
CO scenery, we began to see lots of mulies ( mule deer). 
There was still snow up there! The air was chilly and a bit windy. Notice all the kiddo's running arround barefooted!. My brother Kevin climbed the hill on the other side of the road to find some 'clean' snow for the kiddo's . Joe had saved some Maple syrup from Crackerbarrel and poured that on the snow. Kiddo's loved it but soon started to shiver ! 
We were headed down this hill when we left the scenic overlook. It was a steep down hill drive with lots of switch backs in the road and runway truck ramps.
Across the street from the view above. So beautiful !
Just had to get that moon on this picture. The scenery was so gorgeous thru here! It was so different from our scenery here at home ! We drove all the way to Page Az. It was arround 11 when we got there but we got to meet Dave !!! Woo hoo after not having seen him for for 11 days, that was pretty special to the kids and I. We also wanted to be near the marina to pick up our boat the next morning =) Finally coming to the highlight of our trip! I know this was a long post but believe me when I say I had to really sort thru to narrow it down to these! Anyway be sure to check back for more updates ! The next one will be on our houseboat we rented on Lake Powell ! 
