Kline Road Trips

Oakley, Kansas to Mesa Verde National Park

August 15, 2015 Amy Kline

Oakley, Kansas to Mesa Verde National Park.

After Poptarts for breakfast, we were on our way for another day of driving. This drive was a lot more varied in scenery than yesterday’s. This country is just amazing. We went from fairly flat Kansas to beautiful mountains, to dry upland prairie.

The road started out very flat with only the occasional grain co-op.

We started to get up in the mountains where we sat grazing cattle and the shadows of clouds on the prairie.

Did I mention that we drove along a train track for much of the day? Jeff was in heaven!

And finally the mountains! No scary roads like last year, but definitely still beautiful!

Going through the tunnels was exciting too.

I applaud truck drivers who drive these roads in the winters; they must have nerves of steel!

This is a runaway truck ramp to be used if a truck’s breaks fail on the way down the mountain.
It is a deep sand road that rises and will slow the truck down.

We stopped for lunch at the Old West Cafe in Fort Garland, CO. Delicious!

We arrived at Mesa Verde National Park about 5:00 pm. We got our camp set up, made some “camping” mac and cheese, and then I took the kids to the Ranger talk, so Jeff could attempt to get some grad school work done.

We were on a hill but had a great view of the sunset.

Our view

Our view a couple minutes later.

This is us waiting for the Ranger Talk to start.
Carson is into making faces for the camera this week 🙂

The Ranger spoke about all the animals that live near Mesa Verde and the adaptations that help them. She also played to the crowd by showing slides of the animal babies. Did you know that the skunks around there have different markings than the regular skunk that we all know and love? And that the mountain lion can run 60 MPH? Also that you can’t necessarily determine the age of a rattlesnake by the number of rattles on the tail? Some years, they molt (and gain a new rattle) more than once during the year. Don’t worry, we didn’t see any of those animals, but the boys (and I) loved to learn about them. There was also a warning on the info board near the bathrooms to be aware of Brown Recluse Spiders and Black Widow spiders. Yikes!

Uncategorized

Galena, IL to Oakley, Kansas

August 13, 2015 Amy Kline

Drive to Oakley, Kansas

August 8, 2015

The actual road trip portion of the vacation began at 5:30 AM. We hit the Galena McDonald’s for some McGriddles (Yum!) and were on the way. It was a long day of driving but the kids handled it very well. I began to read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix to them a few chapters at a time. They also played an hour of their devices, read books, and Carson napped a bit. Jeff and I took turns driving and sleeping. Iowa and Kansas are big states, though Kansas is not nearly as flat as I thought it was.

Carson loves the neck cushion.

Spencer is a reading machine!

It did get very, very hot in central Kansas. We were driving the entire time so did not have to endure it at all, but I did take pictures as proof. It had cooled down to about 80 by the time we stopped for the night.

We stopped for the night in Oakley, Kansas and camped at a small campground that was connected to a restaurant. The owner told us that he made a 600 mile weekly trip to Loveland, CO to pick up the pizzas that were made there so the kids and I ordered one and it did not disappoint! Yummy!

There was also a resident cat there that enjoyed posing for pictures. He really wanted to get petted on the belly, but since I am allergic to it, he had to settle for photos. I also got a few pictures of another rainbow. It sprinkles a bit after we were all set up, but then the sun came out in time for a spectacular sunset. Overnight we did get a thunderstorm but there was no wind and just a little thunder and lightning.

Here are a couple pictures from my explorations:

I’m not sure what this plant is, but there were signs warning that the
prickles sticks to clothes and shoes and hurt the skin.

Our camp set up. Not much shade here but we are leaving early anyway.

There were cattle grazing in the field and a few were very

interesting in my camera activities.

Thunderstorms passing to the south gave us another rainbow!

Gorgeous sunset!

Uncategorized

Galena

August 13, 2015 Amy Kline

August 5-7, 2015

This year’s epic trip begins by dropping Lego off to be spoiled by Oma and Opa. We know he is in safe hands!

We had a very beautiful drive to Galena. We stopped in Madison at the State Capital to show the kids and were able to go up into the dome. I always forget how gorgeous that building really is, so impressive!

Once we were in Galena, we celebrated Carson and Grandpa’s birthday by going to Happy Joe’s Pizza (discovered that it was a chain restaurant). As you can see, Jeff had just as much fun playing the games as all the kids did. Carson got to open a bunch of birthday gifts and just about all of them coincidentally were perfect to take along on a road trip!

The cousins had fun playing outside, playing board games, watching a Harry Potter movie marathon and going swimming. Spencer discovered that he LOVED going down the slide! Carson went down the slide once too. It started raining out but wasn’t lightning, so we had the pool to ourselves for quite a while until it started pouring and the poor lifeguards made us get out. We even saw a rainbow on the way back to the house since the sun came back out.

Spencer’s first time going down the slide by himself. Within minutes, no one needed to catch him!

Carson was a little more timid, but did a great job on the slide too!

Jeff and I also had the opportunity to sneak into town for a bit. We were planning to go to a small quilt show, but their advertising didn’t state that it was a night time show so we missed it. Instead, we walked up and down Main Street Galena. Galena is a walled town, and can close the gate if the Mississippi River and its tributaries flood. Ulysses S. Grant also grew up in this town and a lot of Main Street and the surrounding houses pre-date the Civil War.