Day 2

Day 2:

     We had a good night's rest in the one and only tent in the whole campground. We both showered, took down the tent, etc. (or Tyler did:) and left for Milton's Cafe in downtown Lawrence before 7:00a.m. The downtown area is lovely with lots of high-end shops and eateries. I kept telling Tyler that I thought it was one of the prettiest towns I had ever seen (sort of Bruce-like he thought). Some of the locals told us we picked the two best places to eat while we were there...of course that was because Tyler had done lots of research before we even left home:).

      We set off for the plains and I thought what would be lots of boring flat land but I was surprised to find eastern Kansas to be much prettier that I thought it would be. What I saw instead were pretty rolling hills of tall grass with sedimentary rock formations exposed by wind erosion, trees that were bent from the wind of the plains, herds of cattle, scores of slowly turning windmills and the occasional oil rig. There weren't many fields of crops because the rock was too close to the surface and so the soil can't be tilled there (I learned that reading the tourist info at a rest stop:)

     Later in the afternoon when we were in western Kansas, the landscape flattened out some and there were more crops (corn, beans and sunflowers) and many huge granaries. We could see for miles and miles as we drove down the interstate. The sky looked never-ending but by now my mind was on what was up ahead in Colorado....seeing the Rocky Mountains.

We entered Colorado at 1:34 mountain time. Amazingly...the mountains were nowhere in sight! Flat as a pancake!  About two hours later we could see the mountains partially obscured by clouds and rain. We arrived in Lyon, Colorado on the northwest side of Denver and in the foothills of the Rocky Mountain National Park and ate at another restaurant Tyler found online called Oskar Blues. Another homerun by Mr. Research!