Drive East – Third Stop: Middle of Nowhere, Kansas

Friday, October 21

Colorado is really wide. And very flat on the eastern side of the state.

Once you get past Denver, there really isn’t much there. Vast, brown fields with not much around. At that point, you’ve got the Rockies behind you and you are headed toward the Great Plains and Kansas. It sure was boring.

The odometer stood at 28,325 when we pushed off from Boulder, and I was ready to get home now. Flat, boring surroundings was incentive to go, go, go.

And so we did.

Hot spots along the way were some more ethanol distilleries, windmills and small oil rigs. 

I cheered when we finally crossed over the Kansas border several hours later. And we looked for the World’s Largest Easel in Goodland, Kansas just after the border. But we didn’t see it. Perhaps I was looking for it closer to Route 70 and it was farther off the road, actually inside the town. I don’t know how you can miss an 80-foot-tall easel with Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” on it, but I did. 

And I certainly wasn’t going to turn around to go find it. We were headed home! Apparently I’ll have to go back to western Kansas another time to see that.

Auggie and I made a couple of stops during the 325-mile drive we did that day. We needed to play some fetch, have some lunch, stretch our legs, sniff the prairie and keep ourselves interested. The interesting thing was seeing all this prairie in the autumn. When we had traveled east across the Great Plains at the front end of our trip, it was summer and the crops were thriving. It wasn’t so beautiful in late October once the corn had been harvested. Barren is a good word.

We overnighted in the middle of nowhere, at a horrible little campsite in Hill City, Kansas. And I hadn’t even packed my ruby slippers to brighten the place up! We were the only camper on a small tract of land surrounded by grumpy-looking people who lived in trailer homes. It was not our favorite night on the road.

We took a quick evening walk, had dinner and called it an early night. I got two blog posts written and posted - thank you to whosever WiFi I was using. I was suddenly really fixated on driving home to Maryland, so getting an early start the next morning was A-OK with me. 

Boulder, CO

Wednesday-Friday, Oct 19-21

On Wednesday, Howard decided to work from a mountain for the day.

He made some calls in the morning to take care of important work issues while we decided which day-long hike we wanted to do. We decided on Mount Audobon.

The Mount Audobon trail starts at 10,508 feet and ends at 13,233 feet above sea level. Boulder lies at 5,430 feet above sea level, so we had a hefty upward drive just to get us to the trailhead in the Brainard Lake Recreation Area. We let the car do that hard work, though, so it was all OK.  J

Important: dogs were allowed on the trail. Auggie was more than welcome on this hike. Hooray!

We set out mid-morning, giving the day a chance to warm up a bit. It was a beautiful, clear day, and there was snow on the ground at altitude. The trailhead was covered with snow, which meant that higher up was definitely going to have snow. Auggie, put your snow boots on, dude.

At the parking lot, we got out of the car, bundled up, filled our backpacks with water and snacks and took off on our hike. It was a Wednesday, so there weren’t many people on the trail. We encountered a few, though, who told us that the snow wasn’t too bad higher up. So on we went.

There were some stunning views of the mountain.

Starting at 10,000+ feet, we quickly passed the tree line; the trail was soon just rocks.

At some point, I noticed that I was stumbling on the rocks and not having an easy time keeping my balance. Hmmmm … I haven’t been drinking.

Aha – it’s the altitude, silly girl. 

Auggie’s first hike at altitude had been back in Banff on Sulphur Mountain. That mountain, starting at 5,200 feet above sea level, seemed like a baby hike compared to this one. But my boy is a strong one – he trudged on with us like the trooper that he is.

I say trudged, because that’s what I was doing. Howard is in fine shape, biking, hiking and running at altitude on a constant basis. I, on the other hand, train at sea level and was really feeling the altitude as we continued to climb.

I kept noticing that when I tripped over yet another rock, I could sorta see in slow motion that I was losing my balance. It took me so long to respond to the stumble, though, that I was actually conscious of telling myself to pick up my leg/foot and put it down (fast!) in front of me. Normally the reaction just happens so quickly that you don’t really notice it – the body just does what it needs to do to stay upright. The fact that I was seeing my reactions play out slow-mo in my own head and eyes was a clear indication that I was impacted by altitude.

As we got higher, the wind started picking up, too. Lower down on the mountain, we had opened up zippers and let the heat out that we had generated from hiking. Once the wind started to pick up, though, I closed up my zippers, put my hat and gloves back on and made staying warm my priority.

Howard could have easily kept going to the top, but at a certain point, I was no longer having fun (and I don’t think Auggie was, either). I called it – it was time to turn around.

I was happy to be heading down the mountain. Perhaps I was just imagining it, but Auggie seemed relieved to be going down, too. Bless his dear little doggie heart – he is such a dutiful friend – I am sure he would have kept climbing with us as far as we went. But he had a spring in his step as he headed down the trail, moving through snow drifts with four-legged ease and clambering over rocks with no problem.

I, on the other hand, was concentrating hard on each footstep, thinking through the placement of each foot so that I didn’t turn an ankle in my oxygen-deprived state.

Soon enough, we got down to levels where I could feel my reflexes responding properly again. We stopped for a snack below the tree line, too, which helped to refuel and reset my meters.

I think we probably reached close to 12,000 feet before we turned around, which was pretty high for me and Auggie (probably the highest we’d been all trip).  I was proud that we’d made it so high, even though we weren’t completely acclimated to altitude. Let’s hear it for good hiking training throughout the trip and a good level of overall fitness. Woo hoo! 

On the drive back to Boulder, I proclaimed that I wanted a burger and fries. So, after we’d cleaned up, we took off and found a great veggie burger and French fries, which completely satisfied my need for fat after a lot of hard work on the mountain that day. Yummy! Afterwards, we went for tea and dessert, where I found a cupcake and Howard had some cookies to round out our dinner.

I was so tired and slept like a log that night. Zzzzzzzzzz.

On Thursday, Howard went back to work like a responsible person, while Auggie and I took a nice long morning walk along Boulder Creek. I was scheduled to have lunch with my friend Maureen about noon.

Maureen and I know each other from our martial arts training. She lived in DC for a long time, and she and I actually tested for our Black Belts together back in 2001. She moved back to Denver in 2005 to be closer to her family, about the same time that I moved to New York/New Jersey.

Maureen had an appointment in Boulder on Thursday morning, so we met on Pearl Street afterwards and found a restaurant to have lunch. 

It was great to catch up with her, see what she’s been up to and learn how life has been treating her in Colorado. We took a long walk after lunch, did a little window shopping and enjoyed another pretty sunny afternoon in Boulder.

Once Maureen took off to head back to Denver, I went back to the apartment and woke up Auggie from his all-day nap. We went out for a walk to explore Boulder a bit. 

Another gorgeous university town!

Boulder is home to the University of Colorado and the Colorado Buffaloes. (What is it with me and buffaloes lately?)

It’s a huge university from my standards, with more than 30,000 students. It was fun to walk Auggie around campus, dodging bikes and recognizing how young college students are these days. Auggie and I clearly were not hip enough, though – we were not wearing our flannel shirts or riding our skateboards.

[Note to self: must teach dog how to ride a skateboard.]

We ended up taking a longer walk than I had anticipated. By the time we made it back to the apartment, I was pooped and so was Auggie. I took a little rest, fed Auggie and watched him curl up again to take another nap.

I took my computer and headed out to a cute little local café to connect to the Internet and get a bit of personal stuff done.

After that, Howard and I went out to grab some dinner, and then I stayed up way too late watching a movie.

Friday morning arrived, and suddenly it was time to pack up and drive again. This had been our final stop with friends, and it signified the beginning of our final few days on the road. We were going to follow a straight trajectory along Route 70 from Denver back to Maryland. It was time to go home.

We said a big thank you to Howard, I pushed the reluctant Auggie back into his spot in the van …

… and off we went! 

Drive East – Second Stop: Boulder, CO

Tuesday, Oct 18

First thing I did when I woke up Tuesday morning was wonder how cold it had gotten. 

The second thing I did was take a deep breath, begrudgingly peel myself away from Auggie and jump out from under my sleeping bag. 

The third thing I did was put the key in the ignition to see what the temperature was.

Ouch! 24 degrees!

We had experienced 24 degrees back in Utah at Bryce Canyon. Somehow I didn’t remember that 24 degrees felt this cold. And this morning, we also had fog and frost to intensify the cold. Brrrrrr. Winter sets in early in the Rockies!

We made our morning walk a quick one so that I could get back in the van, sit next to the furnace and thaw out. It was really cold!

I didn’t waste any time getting food in me – a nice hot bowl of oatmeal to warm me up. Hot tea and a couple of layers of clothing was slowly starting to get me warmer, too. And when I had finally packed us up and gotten us ready to go, I blasted the car heater as we drove.

We weren’t going too far, though. Only six miles to Steamboat Springs – I wanted to take a walk and poke around. Gratefully, it started to warm up fairly quickly that day, so our walk around the town was nice. Auggie found a nice stream to plop around in, and then we found the ski infrastructure (sans snow!). 

We poked around the main street shops, and then I found a coffee shop where I got a quick coffee and a yummy snack. I filled up the gas tank, and then we got on the road. We were headed to Boulder, and were due there mid-afternoon.

Our drive southeast on Route 40 was beautiful. Another blue sky, more mountains and some more snow to remind us that we were at altitude. 

We were driving through some beautiful country, reminded at regular intervals that the Rockies were all around us. 

And when we dropped out on to Interstate 70 for the final approach toward Denver (before we took a left turn to head north toward Boulder), we saw more gorgeous layers of snow-capped mountain behind snow-capped mountain as we drove. It sure was a pretty drive.

We got to Boulder about 3 pm. Our friend, Howard, wasn’t able to get out of the office and home till about 3.30, so we happily got out of the van and took a walk from Howard’s house down to Pearl Street, the cool pedestrian shopping and dining street in Boulder. Howard called us when he got home, and we walked back to say hello.

Before the sun got too low, we took off for a hike up Mount Sanitas, which was a short walk from Howard’s apartment. We had a great hike – cloudless blue sky, pretty vistas and an interesting trail.

Once we got home, we chilled and stretched for a bit, and then Howard needed to run out to a meeting for a few hours. I did some shopping and made dinner. After that, it was time to sleep. Good night. 

Drive East - First Stop: Steamboat Springs, CO

Monday, Oct 17

It was a GORGEOUS autumn day – a super day for driving. Utah sent us off with all its autumn splendor. We drove along Route 40 – not a primary road – because we didn’t feel like Interstate driving. Instead, we took the more scenic route, and it was a real treat. So many beautiful golds and oranges against a gorgeous sunny blue sky. Nice day to be on the road.

The first parts of our journey took us through the Wasatch and Uinta National Forests. (We had just been in the Wasatch the previous few days over the weekend.) And then it slowly turned into … not much at all. Lots of big expanse of land, not much civilization. There was a long time between “cities.” And then, when you got to one of those, ahem, “cities” on the map, you had to be careful not to blink before you were through it and out the other side. So different from the east coast!

We were on the road for a few hours, and my gauge of our progress was how close to the Colorado border we were getting. (Western states are really big!) We were getting close to the eastern border of Utah, when suddenly I started seeing signs for Dinosaur National Monument. Hey – that sounded kinda cool. When it came time, we turned off and stopped for a look.

Yes, there were dinosaurs in this part of the world … 149 million years ago. This one is fake ... 

... but these bones here … they are real. 

And yes, they really are 149 million years old!

The signs in the museum and the bones quarry told us the story about how this big flat plain used to be a river bed. There are questions about why so many dinosaur bones ended up in this particularly rich spot for fossils. The leading theory is that there was a long drought, which killed many dinosaurs, many of which died along the river. Once heavy rains returned, additional dinosaurs were killed, while the carcasses of others who had died “upstream” were also transported by the water further downstream. As floodwaters receded, the bones dropped to the bottom of the riverbed, were covered with mud and silt and piled up, waiting to be discovered by humans.

The first human to uncover those dinosaur bones was Earl Douglass in 1909. Douglass was a paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh.

Take a look at the terrain. Don’t the hills themselves look like dinosaur backs? Is that how Douglass guessed that there were dinosaur bones beneath the surface? 

Here are some more shots of the surrounding scenery and the current river. It’s so broad and open – very easy to see how this was once a massive river.

We made a few phone calls from Dinosaur before getting back on the road. We had gotten on the road early that morning and were making good time. I was in the mood to cover some ground.

We kept driving on Route 40. East! East! East! 


We were headed to Boulder, Colorado, where we would spend a few days with friends. 

Earlier in the day, I had seen the town of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, on the map. Something about the name made me want to see it and spend the night there. (Was I really looking for a steamboat???) So I drove us all the way to Steamboat Springs, which was a total of about 335 miles from Salt Lake City, or more than six hours of actual driving, not counting the stop in Dinosaur.

(For most of our trip, Auggie and I had made a point not to drive more than about 250 miles or four hours per day, so we didn’t overdo it. The urge to get east was strong in me now, so apparently that rule no longer applied. I drove us on to Steamboat Springs!)

I had been listening to local radio on the drive and learned that it was going to be a cold night. Steamboat Springs was at altitude, nestled right in the heart of the Colorado Rockies, so we were going to face the brunt of it. Get ready for another cold night, Auggie!

We found our campsite just outside of Steamboat Springs and settled in. The lady running the campsite told us they were closing down in two days’ time, another sign the cold weather was on its way big time. 

Auggie and I took a nice evening walk to shake out the long day of driving from our bones. We were treated to another beautiful sunset and evening sky. Look at those purple mountains with the pretty autumn colors. Wow!

After our walk, we cooked dinner, settled in and turned the furnace on to get ready for the cold. Shame I couldn’t clone Auggie – it sure would have been good to have more dogs to keep me warm! 

Salt Lake City

Sunday, October 9-Monday, October 17

Salt Lake City felt like a nice place to stay put for a bit, getting ready for the final push home. It was marvelous to enjoy the comforts of life not on the road, even for just a short while. Was this a taste of what home would feel like soon? I also had a lot of errands to run and things to take care of in a city, so I got my list ready and started on my To Dos.

I did lots of computer work, including catching up on a lot of email and the always-behind-the-actual-day blog posts that needed to be written. My tenants in the house back in Silver Spring were also getting ready to move out, and so there was lots of correspondence that I needed to take care of on that front.

My tenants had sent me another big packet of mail, which I needed to sort through, too. That always necessitates taking care of a number of additional items, and so I kept the administrative energies flowing.

I also started facing the fact that I was heading home soon, and the thoughts of professional next-steps were pervading my mind more and more. They needed some attention.

I made some phone calls that week and sent some emails to start warming up my professional network. I also dusted off my resume for the first time in about nine months, and freshened it up a bit. Since that is actually a non-stop process, I ended up with several iterations over the course of a few days.

I clicked open a few of the daily job digest emails that I had been automatically deleting the past several months, and I started to take a look at what was potentially out there in the communications field for me. Turns out there were a few things of interest, so I ended up applying for one or two of them. (As of the publish date of this blog entry in early November, there has been no response.)

But no response right now is all OK. I still have a lot of unanswered questions in my own head about exactly what it is that I want to be when I grow up. Taking my time feels like a good way forward for the moment.

Throughout the course of the week in Salt Lake, I got the oil changed in the van, took Auggie’s dog leash to be repaired, got my hair cut, went to the post office, did lots of cooking and … took Auggie to a local dog wash.

He HATED it!

Look at him. You can just read it on his face here … “Why?”

I was happy that Auggie no longer smelled like wilderness and mud, or carried the remnants of that fly fishing creek in his fur. He, on the other hand, was not happy with me for a while. (I did buy him a pig’s ear at the dog wash place to help apologize for the bath … that helped. J )

While in Salt Lake, I also had time to visit two of the city’s must-see tourist attractions: Temple Square, and the Great Salt Lake.

Temple Square was a very interesting experience. It is the home of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (shortened to LDS in this blog and in many circles outside of this blog). This church is also colloquially referred to as the Mormon Church. (Here is the link to LDS on Wikipedia; I found it helpful in doing research before I got to Salt Lake, as well as while I was there and afterwards when I’ve had questions (and I’ve had many questions).)

The LDS Church owns much more than the city blocks that Temple Square occupies. They are actively developing part of downtown Salt Lake with new buildings and other large-scale city-planning efforts. And I’m certain there is much, much more that they own and administer that I have no idea about from my short visit to the city.

Here is a shot of the administration building. It is massive – bigger than many corporate headquarters buildings I’ve visited in my career. And being present on Temple Square in Salt Lake City helped me to realize just how active and well-funded a church LDS really is. It is truly a massive multi-national corporation, with all that that entails. Wow.

On Temple Square, I was able to view the pretty Mormon Temple. (No, I was not allowed in, nor are most people, including most LDS brothers and sisters. Only “approved” LDS church members are ever allowed to enter this or other Mormon Temples. Many (most?) LDS church members never set foot into a temple during their lifetimes.)

[N.B. – You can get a “tour” of the inside of the Temple via an intricate small-scale model that is viewable in one of the Temple Square Visitor’s Centers. Video presentations describe all the rooms inside the Temple.]

Here are shots of the outside and inside of the acoustically almost-perfect Mormon Tabernacle. Both the Temple and the Tabernacle are real architectural wonders. They are both built with wooden trusses, wooden pegs and rawhide – no nails were used in the construction of these buildings!

Wikipedia carries some interesting facts about the Tabernacle, as well as its organ, which is one of the largest pipe organs in the world.

After I walked around Temple Square, I went across the street and took a tour of the LDS Conference Center, which was opened in 2000 and replaced the Tabernacle as the official site of the LDS Church’s semi-annual General Conferences.

 Another wow.

Pristine, beautifully architected building. Much of the religion’s prized artwork. A 21,000-seat auditorium to house the semi-annual crowds that visit Salt Lake for the Church’s meetings. And at the back of that auditorium is the broadcast center, which simultaneously translates (into more than 90 languages!) and broadcasts around the world via satellite the messages of President Monson and other speakers during the conferences. 

I tell you – it was eye-opening and head-shaking to see the infrastructure that the LDS Church has implemented. As a communications professional, it was also impressive to see such a strong, effective and well-run messaging infrastructure!

Here are a few shots of me on the roof of the Conference Center, with the rest of Temple Square (and, of course, the beautiful mountains) in the background.

Later in the week, Auggie and I drove to the Great Salt Lake, the largest salt-water lake in the western hemisphere. Another very cool place.

The lake covers a very large portion of land but is actually very shallow – it’s only about 20 feet at its deepest spot. And because there is no outlet from the lake, the water can only evaporate, leaving a high concentration of minerals, which is what makes it so salty. I didn’t swim (or float!), but I did stick my finger in at one point. It was unfortunately at a spot where there was a lot of goo floating along the shore, so I’m not sure I was able to discern high salinity from the icky goo I was worried about getting off my tongue. Hmmmm … there’s got to be a more scientific way to measure salinity!

Officially, Auggie and I had driven that day to Antelope Island State Park, which is the largest island in the Great Salt Lake. It’s also a Utah state park. In recent years, a causeway was built from the mainland onto Antelope Island, and roads were constructed on parts of the island to enable easy car access and transport. Auggie and I took these photos from the causeway over to Antelope Island.

 Look at the mountains on the other side of the lake – they look like they are floating.

And see how the lake is so calm it’s acting as a mirror.

There are bison on Antelope Island – but we didn’t see any antelope. We had been in and through so many states on this trip where bison live, but we hadn’t actually seen any of the mysterious creatures. I did a small cheer when I saw this big guy – it was our first live, free-roaming bison of the trip!

Auggie and I drove to the western side of Antelope Island, where we hiked the Lake Shore Trail. It was a little longer than we had time to fully hike before the sun went down. (I didn’t want to get stuck in the middle of wilderness with only a small flashlight. The potential for critters – bison, snakes, coyotes – was high and I didn’t want an incident.) So we hiked what we could in the dry, grassy, rocky terrain.

At one point along the hike, we were on a hill and I wanted to hike down to the water. Auggie and I left the trail and were about 30 feet down the hill when I saw a snake. It was a baby snake, but on quick glance, it had a diamond-like pattern on its body and I quickly got the willies. No – no snakes, please. (I wasn’t sure if it was a rattlesnake, but at that point I didn’t care.) I called Auggie to stop, and then I walked to him so we could walk together back to the trail as I watched for more snakes. We stayed on the trail after that!

After we had turned around and were making our way back to the Champagne Chevy, we saw the sun getting lower on the horizon. We had planned our trip to the Lake for the second half of the day so we could see the sunset – it was going to be pretty!

We were finishing our hike and were almost back to the van. We could see the Champagne Chevy on the parking lot and it was only about 10 more minutes walk from us. As we rounded a big bush on the trail, suddenly we saw this BISON about eight feet away from us. It had been completely hidden by the bush and the angle from which we were approaching.

All of a sudden, there I am with a massive, 1,500-pound wild animal eight feet away from me, an 80-pound canine at my side, and we are suddenly all just standing there, looking at each other.

“Which one of us is going to move first?” I thought.

“Me,” was my immediate reply. No sense in letting the bison make the first move, because that was going to be scary, and probably wasn’t going to be a good one for me and Auggie.

I grabbed Auggie by the collar and pulled him quickly and quietly to my side. I immediately started talking to the bison, in the softest, friendliest voice I could muster. I told Mr. Bison that me and my dog were just going to keep walking here on this little trail and that we were just headed down the road a bit to our car, where we would get in it and leave his sweet little bison self to his peace and quiet.

At the same time, I kept pulling Auggie’s head back to front to break the eye contact with the bison. No need for a stare-off challenge between the beasts, you know. We would not win that one either, I was sure.

We walked on quickly and quietly, and a few times I threw a quick glance over my shoulder to see where Mr. Bison was. He was gratefully standing still, not moving after us, not moving away from us … just standing still. Good boy, Mr. Bison.

Auggie and I made it back to the van and I got him some water, continuing to throw a few glances in the direction of Mr. Bison, just to make sure he wasn’t changing his mind. Nope. We were fine.

And then I took in the fact that the sun was continuing to set and that we had a sunset to watch. We recovered fast, and I drove us to the nearby hill – ironically called Buffalo Point – and we climbed it quickly so we could see the sunset from the highest spot.

It was lovely!

The sun was throwing all kinds of beautiful colors onto the nearby White Rock Bay, which was lighting up in yellows, oranges and the start of some pinks.

It was also pretty in pink behind us across to the eastern shore of the Lake.

And then the twilight blues and purples set in.

Altogether – a very lovely sunset following a very lovely day. I tell you - we've seen some AMAZING sunsets on this trip! 

On the weekend, Andy and I decided to go camping. (We had all the equipment already, you know!) We threw together some food, convinced Auggie that he did want to leave the comforts of civilization, and then I gave Andy the driver’s seat again since he was the local.

He drove us out to the Wasatch National Forest, only a quick hour’s drive from Salt Lake. Yet another very pretty place! 

Andy had thrown his fishing rod into the van, and we got to our camping spot with plenty of sunshine left to get some fishing in.

Andy took his rod, and Auggie and I followed the noise of the bubbling brook behind our campsite to this pretty stream. Let the fishing begin!

Andy warmed up the stream for us and caught a few – very small – fish. One was so small, Andy actually flung it from the water when he pulled the line to set the hook.

I’m not going to spin any fish tales here – we caught some fish, but they were all small!

Look at that little guy in Andy’s right hand.

I actually caught the biggest fish of the day (that’s not really saying much, and it’s not this one pictured here). But the fact that I caught three fish is a big deal in my own personal history book.

I FINALLY CAUGHT A FISH WHILE FLY FISHING!!! See how proud I am?   J

Woo hoo!

Auggie just wondered when it was time to eat some fish. 

We had a blast in Salt Lake City. Monday morning finally came, though, and we woke up early to get packed and on the road. We thanked Andy for having us and for a great time. Then I dragged Auggie from his cozy spot on the couch back out to the van and he slowly, begrudgingly, painstakingly climbed in. I explained to him that this was the first step in making our way home to our cozy beds … but he didn’t seem to get excited about that. Dogs are so silly sometimes.

And there we were … headed east toward the Atlantic, accompanied by some more Willie Nelson. It was a gorgeous, sunny day for driving. We were on the road again.