So we’ve been in Colorado now for just over 24 hours! It’s been a crazyyy, wonderful 24 hours! We didn’t expect to make it into Denver by Sunday night, but we did! We made incredible time across the country and drove close to 1200 miles in ONE DAY, and on less than 5 hours of sleep. The weather was great the entire time, except for about 10 minutes of rain in Missouri. Both the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers were so high when we drove over them! It’s so weird to look at flooded rivers…water can do a lot of damage very quickly, and it was scary to see the water flooding over the docks, fields, and nearby sidewalks in the cities. Kansas was a L-O-N-G drive. We spent over 7 hours driving through it! Here’s part of my journal entry through Kansas:
“It’s a beautiful day today. 99°F, but luckily we’re in the comfortable, climate controlled “white lightening” (my car) and crusin’ at 75mph in 70°F. It’s wonderfully sunny and we’re driving into the sunshine…I’m actually kinda worried about getting sunburned through the windows. Everything is so green! Except for the occasional golden field. I have no idea what’s growing out here and it must be fairly early in the growing season cause the plants are little. Every now and then we’ll see a barn, silo, and the even less frequent rest area or service station. There seems to be very little going on, and the simplistic appearance of life is kinda appealing. The state appears to basically consist of booming agriculture, wind power, and oil drilling. Honestly, seeing the windmills makes my heart skip a beat with excitement at the sight of more sustainable power sources. I just about drool watching them slowly spin around as we drive by.”
So we got out of Kansas and into Colorado just as the sun was setting. I was straining my eyes to see some mountains before the sun went down! I kept insisting I saw them…but Ben would point out that it would probably equate to seeing the Appalachians from Raleigh, so not likely. The eastern part of Colorado is just like Kansas; flat and straight. While traveling on I-70W one wicked storm was brewing just north of us. The lightning strikes across such expansive land like that was absolutely incredible! I’ve never seen such HUGE, lingering lightning bolts, and they were basically right beside us! We made it into Denver around 10pm, checked into our hotel, brought the bikes up, and immediately left for Golden, CO. My friends Jen and Lee were staying with Lee’s uncle David in Golden for the weekend and they had just about a day left of vacation out here in Colorado. When we arrived to David’s house, we were greeted with an unexpected dinner! Steak, artichokes, baked potatoes, and garlic bread. YUM. The 4 of us made plans to meet up around 8am the next morning and go climbing, then Ben and I hit the roads again to get back to our hotel in Denver. I didn’t even change out of what I had been wearing all day when I crawled into bed. We had been awake for 21 hours and drove a solid 18-19 hours of that; exhaustion doesn’t even begin to cover it.
All in all, the drive was not bad. We kept ourselves pretty entertained with music, and every time we wanted to listen to something specific, I just burned another CD on my computer. Finally making it out here to Colorado makes a drive like that TOTALLY worth it too. It’s beautiful and it’s so exciting!! I’m so glad we made it safely!
Total for the day (Sunday): 1220 miles
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