Mike Jones

After a quick bite for breakfast we got back in the car to head to Wyoming. Yesterday when we were touring the Rocky Mountains National Park we stopped at one of those scenic overlook and noticed a sign that documented the number of miles to particular points of interest. One sign pointed north and it proclaimed that it was only 38 to Wyoming. Well... to put things inton perspective... one must keep in mind a few points...
Point 1: That mileage must be "...as the birds fly".
Point 2:. I also forgot that my final destination for today was no where near the southern border of Wyoming.
Point 3: My vehicle would not be traveling at 60 miles per hour with all of the switching back and fourth on the drive out of the park and so expect it to take a wee bit longer.

Where we were at the Rocky Mountain National Park we learned that we we were close to the headwaters of the Colorado River. At the beginning of today's journey we passed over that mighty river in a "blink of an eye." I wondered if I might have been able to jump over that great river at this point like I was able to jump over the headwaters of the Mississippi at Lake Itasca, Minnesota. Well.maybe I could have..."when I wore a year younger man's clothes."

An hour into our drive we found out that the major road going to our final destination was closed due to an ongoing fire in the mountains. So we rerouted our trip and took a completely different route. The GPS was giving us headaches by asking us to turn at nonsensical the times. Afyer a few of these we just opted for using the Atlas we brought with us.

An hour drive along this alternate route and we encountered a completely separate fire than the one from which we were detouring. From a distance it looked like the smoke might have been coming from a volcano. When we got closer to the fire we saw that it was less than 50 yards from the highway. We guessed that if we would have stopped for lunch they probably would have closed this detour too. As we passed could actually see the flames on the pines reaching high into the sky.

We had received a message along the route that my mother (who had arrived in Wyoming only last night) was being admitted to the hospital. We made sure that we rerouted today's journey to make sure we went to the hospital for a visit before heading towards the site of the family reunion. The medical staff believes that my mother will only need to spend one night at the hospital for observation.

After a short visit we left the hospital and proceeded to the site of the family reunion. Twelve hours of driving due to all of the detours and I was ready to take my hands off the wheel for a while.

We were able to catch a few photos of the majestic mountains along the way but the smoke from the fires has clouded them. We anticipate that tomorrow will be a better day for capturing good photos. We also saw a herd of bison and lots of antelopes along the drive today.Read more