After last summer spending all my time on the computer doing school and working and it being a lousy summer in the way of quantity of dry, warm, sunshine; I knew I wanted {read as: really, really needed} to see and feel more sunshine this year.   One spring day when the wind had started again the kids were listening to Adventures in Odyssey, I decided to see how much it was to fly to Denver – it was $158 one way on June 6.  I decided to buy us tickets out of the state without a set plan for how we would get home. The kids and I have left home for six weeks of traveling.  Plan A involved travel across the States to the East Coast and back up.  In the end that is not what we are doing, but there will be and already has been a lot of fun and history involved.

We flew into Denver, rented a car and drove to Colorado Springs.  We went to Colorado Springs to see Focus on the Family, the Air Force Academy, and the Garden of the Gods.  We drove out of the rental car lot at 8:40am, went to find breakfast, Colorado Springs, got gas, and re-entered the car rental lot at 8:40pm to return the car.  

At that point Aunt Carol and my cousin Loneta were there to meet us and take us to Loneta’s house where we were spending the night.  Wednesday morning we got up, gathered all of our stuff and climbed into Loneta’s jeep and Uncle Dave & Aunt Carol’s truck to head Northwest for 4 hours to Steamboat Springs, where we stayed for the next two days.  We got to stay in a wonderful 2 bedroom condo with an outside pool.  We were there for Loneta to do a photo shoot; it was really fun to get to see what she did for work.  On Thursday morning mom and I went with Loneta to see where she was going to be shooting for the day so we could return later in the day.  We went back to the condo then and the kids were in the pool with Uncle Dave already and mom joined them – by the time the kids got out it had been 3 or 3 ½ hours.  Then Aunt Carol, mom the kids & I headed into downtown to walk around and see what shops were in the ski town.  Then mom & I headed back up the mountain to the house where the photo shoot was happening – it was such an amazing process to get to watch. 

On Friday we split ways with Loneta and the six of us climbed into the truck and started the drive to Cody, Wyoming.  It was a 12 hour drive, but it was fun and very interesting.  We got to see the parts of the original Oregon Trail – the ruts are still there and running alongside the highway.  We stopped every couple/few hours to stretch, it was really amazing how comfortable, fun, and fast the time seemed to go.