Trip summary -- mileage, etc.

We made it home from Lexington, KY, on July 4, about 6 pm.
Here are some of the statistical details.

51 days, 50 nights
33 nights camping
11 nights in a motel
6 nights at a friend's house

mileage -- automobile 8,433
camper 5,353

states -- 15 (VA, TN, ARK, OK, TX, NM, AZ, UT, CO, KS, MO, IL, IN, WV, KY)

Two oil and filter changes; new set of car tires

Only two problems: (1) thrown tire tread from truck in TX hit and bent the left support for the step into the camper, making it useless. Fixed it at our Santa Fe campsite's workshop with the help of the camp's maintenance man. (2) the extreme amount of dust on the rough unpaved road into Chaco Canyon eventually caused the pilots on the frig and the heater to be reluctant responders, at best. The mobile RV repair man in Cortez, CO just outside Mesa Verde (where we stayed with the Esenwein's at their beautiful adobe home right across from the park) fixed the problem.

Aliner sightings: Memphis campground; Chaco Canyon campground; Million-dollar highway pass between Ouray and Silverton, CO, but it turned toward Durango while we turned toward Silverton; Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park campground; and Garden of the Gods campground in Colorado Springs.

June 30 - July 4 -- Trip home

We left Colorado Springs on the 30th to start home. The first day we got to Abilene KS, Ike's boyhood home. We did not get to see his library; got in too late. The next day we got to Nashville, IL, about 40 miles beyond St. Louis. On the way we stopped in Fulton MO to visit the Churchill Museum at Westminster College where he gave his famous Iron Curtain speech in 1946. The museum is very well done and is in the basement of the Christopher Wren church that was destroyed in the London blitz. The church was dismantled, moved, and rebuilt in the early 1950s at Westminster College to commemorate the speech. Then we drove to Lexington Ky, stopping along the way at Lincoln's boyhood home (age 7-21) in Indiana. All that's left of the farmhouse is the outline of the cabin's foundation that Lincoln lived in. We stayed a day in Lexington and saw the Kentucky Horse Farm (surprise, all about horses, and that picture is a statue of Man O War). We also took a tour of the bluegrass country which included a stop at Keeneland, a large horse farm that also has the Keeneland Race Course, where we watched horses at their morning workout (see picture).

June 26-29 -- Colorado Springs

We are camped in a private campground in the city of Colorado Springs. It has two pools, one for adults only. Maybe we will get to use them. We visited the Air Force Academy and the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame on the 27th. The academy is very different from Annapolis and West Point, spread out over miles of terrain. The academic and residential core are totally inaccessible to the public. Although we found it to be a visually stunning place, particularly the chapel, it is rather antiseptic, almost like a movie set that has been abandoned; you don't see anybody. It must be awfully isolating for the students, because it is far away from the city; one wonders when the students have any interaction with civilians.

For easterners like us, the hall of fame was pretty interesting, particularly the part that goes through the history of equipment development (saddles, ropes, boots, clothes, chaps, hats, etc.).

We drove Pikes Peak the next day, and it was spectacular. We took a short hike along the trail the more ambitious use to climb the mountain; you can see Sue sitting on a rock outcropping in one of the attached pictures. We then drove the Garden of the Gods, a red rock park right in the city that is very nice. We also took a short hike there. During our stay we also visited the Ice Skating Hall of Fame, which has an extensive collection of skates from wooden ones developed in Holland in the 16th century to the present, plus lots of pictures and videos of figure skating performances. The Broadmoor Hotel was impressive, much like the Coronado in San Diego or Homestead in Virginia. We joined friends from UUCF for dinner who had moved to Co. Springs in the late 90s, Gerry and Merle Stryker, and caught up on their news. Our last day we did something unusual for us; we stayed in camp in the morning and lounged around the pool and the sauna for a nice relaxing break. Very nice.