Category: Places

Today, we drove just barely into the foothills to a place called Heritage Square, “a unique, delightful replica of a Western village with Victorian architecture.”

Includes authentic old west artifacts such as an alpine slide, a ferris wheel, and modern versions of the old time medicine shows…

We enjoyed a couple of rides down the alpine slide, and a turn on the ferris wheel, but also had fun at a children’s theater production of Pinocchio

which included lots of audience participation. Well done!

Today’s big adventure was a ride into the mountains to St. Mary’s Glacier, which often has snow all year round. We parked at the bottom of a hill (already at 10,000′ elevation), and hiked 3/4 of a mile

up to a pretty little lake

where we had a picnic lunch

and then hiked further up to the glacier/snowfield, and then (tried to) hiked a little way up.

We watched some people skiing, and some snowboarding, and then we watched some people try to slide down the hill, but nobody we saw was able to stay in control or slow down. Four people basically crashed down the hill into a pile of rocks, and we later heard that one might have broken a leg. It was actually pretty frightening to see.

Aside from that, it was a nice day to be up there, even if our lungs were not quite ready to extract oxygen from the thinner air at that altitude.

A visit to Wings Over the Rockies was part of our day today.

It’s a very cool museum at the old site of Lowry Air Force Base. We got to see many, many aircraft, both military

and civilian

but the highlight (for some) was an X-Wing fighter from Star Wars

with R2D2 on the back

No; this isn’t a duplicate post. Grampa bought us all tickets to an afternoon Rockies game against the Nationals.

It was a bright sunny afternoon, and 97º, but our seats were in the shade most of the game.

And when the sun finally reached us, we were able to move to empty seats behind us. After the game, we sat briefly in the “Mile High” seats

Normally, Rowell Pool refers to the family football pool, but at this moment, it refers to the neighborhood pool. A refreshing way to celebrate our arrival!

We have reached our intermediate destination, at Susan’s parents’ house. We will be here for about a week before heading on to further adventures West and South.

One of our favorite stops along the way has been Dairy Queen, as there are DQ’s in most towns.

Two hours to go!

This morning, we leave behind Alliance, Nebraska and the Holiday Inn Express there

and the very bumpy land

and the big coal trains

and head to Colorado

Who needs big stones…

When you have cars to stick in the ground.