July 8th

Left Vernon at 8am, got some donuts at a cool little donut shop (see photo, below). We drove through little towns and long expanses of Texas for a few hours until we reached the Big Texan, home of the 72oz Steak (free if eaten in 1 hour). I really tried to get Lynne to eat it, but we had lunch planned with Aunt Sybil. We got to Casa VanArsdall and had a lovely lunch on the patio with her and GiGi the cat. Uncle Clyde was at work, so we will have to see him when we come back through.

We headed north through some really rural country north of Amarillo, headed to Clayton New Mexico and then Raton. We hit I-25 and went north to Colorado Springs. We were pretty tired, those 2 days of marathon driving really wore us out. It's great being back in the west, though. Truly gorgeous country!

Mitch was home, we saw his and Stepanie's house and went out to Chicago's for pizza and beer. Kirsten called us but couldn't come out. We went back to Mitch's and watched this crazy video he made with Scott Ricketts-- Jonathan, you will love this video-- Mitch and Scott made a cage for his videocamera and attached it to the front bumper of his car, 3 inches from the ground... and drove up to Sandia Crest at amazing speeds! You have to see it to believe it...

July 9th

We left Colorado Springs and drove to Montrose to see Donna and Gary Granere. It took about 5 hours to get there since we had to drive through some canyons and over Monarch pass. There were a bunch of river rafters going down the canyon which made us insanely jealous. But we kept our minds on the road and got to Montrose by 3:30 or so and we had a great visit with the Graneres. As many of you know, Gary has been quite ill. Donna is taking care of him wonderfully and they seemed as happy as they could be under the cirumstances. It was so nice to see them both smiling and living in the mountains they love.

After that we made it to Grand Junction by about 8pm. We decided to stop here and just chill out, eat, and do some geeking on the computer instead of driving a few hours more to get to Glenwood Springs. Have to do it next trip....

This will cut some time out of our drive tomorrow to Flaming Gorge which is on the Utah/Wyoming border. We plan to camp there for a few days and are looking forward to hiking and sitting in the sun looking at the clouds. We will be without an internet connection so, we'll apologize now to all of the super-geeks out there. There will be no posts for a few days! You'll be OK. Go outside in the sunshine or something. We will be back soon!

	Cops and Donuts! The rumors are true! Here's proof! I ate a "fritter" as big as a basketball...
	Route 287 to Amarillo, near Childress.
	The Big Texan in Amarillo
	Near Amarillo
	Aunt Sybil and Lynne after lunch in Amarillo
	Just when you thought you had seen enough of us...
	New Mexico! Good to be back, even if just for a few hours...
	The hills near Raton, New Mexico.
	Lynne and Mitch in Colorado Springs.
	Mitch and Robby.
	The drive from Colorado Springs to Montrose was gorgeous!
	The continental divide at 11,000 feet - Monarch Pass, CO.