L-O-N-N-N-G DAY !!!

Well, where to begin. Yesterday we were in Rock Springs WY, a dusty coal town nestled (?) in valleys surrounded by rocky desert cliffs. I realized that I was almost out of prednisone and so we stopped at a Walgreens to refill my prescription. Because we're two hours ahead of AK we had to wait around so they could call the pharmacy in Homer, receive a fax, etc. etc. etc. So we didn't get out of there until almost noon, although we had done a wonderful job of being moved out of our motel room by 9 am. We drove to Laramie WY and then took 287 down to Denver. THAT was interesting! The first part of the trip took us through some beautiful farm country. We watched the countryside shift from sage desert to grasslands. Wide open spaces, for sure! Consistently there were signed about "High Winds" and this photo shows the miles and miles of snow fences we saw along the road. We also saw some wonderful rock formations as we got farther south. (Remember that you can click on any of these photos to see them blown up). Other absolutely gorgeous formations appeared as we got closer to our destination (or what we THOUGHT was going to be our destination--a little town called "Ted's Place". It was on the map and it sounded like a cool place to spend the night. Along the route, it became apparant that we were having trouble with our right front tire. Every time we stopped at a gas station David had to fill it with air--a slow leak was slowly turning into a moderate leak. Yikes... As we drove along, we realized that just because there's a name on a map doesn't mean there's any kind of distinguishable hamlet. Duh. We should have been able to figure that out. So we filled the tire with air again in Ft. Collins and off we went to find a motel. FOUR HOURS LATER, and south of Denver, we finally found a motel in Castle Rock, which is where I am at the moment. If the name of this town sounds familiar, it's because Steve King made it famous as the location of the big hotel in The Shining. Anyway, I'm signing off now. Once I get all my flower photos identified I'll do a blog on all the wildflowers we've seen and photographed. Some of you may want to skip that upcoming blog; seeing flower photos may be as appealing to some as watching paint dry! It's in the upper 80's today in the sun. My bones are HAPPY!!!