Here's Our New Ride!

[peterk9]

Day 9:

Warning signs: Yellowstone is covered in them and the graphics can be pretty funny:

Do not approach Buffalo......unless of course it is wrapped in a bun!

Peter

 

[VinceL]

That sounds like me. I always take a ton of pictures when I take trips. I'm real big into photography. I usually bring like 6 memory cards with me just in case.

BTW, your last set of pictures are stunning. I need to visit that area of the country one of these days.

Thanks for the bug remover link. And yeah, I was able to get some pretty neat shots. The Dairy Queen one is my fave

Do not approach Buffalo......unless of course it is wrapped in a bun!

Peter

Hehehe, looks like I got last laugh on that one. That is what that Bison bison gets for beating up on that hapless tourist! Get into my belly!!

 

[VinceL]

Day 11:

Today we are running from Rawlins, leaving at 10:42am, to Colorado Springs, arriving at 6:12pm, via the Snowy Mountain Scenic Byway and I-25. Funny thing about these trips is no matter how much research you do, there are always things you find along the way that you wish you could have planned for all along the trip. Scenic Byways are one of those things. We saw a few of them before this point, and I think even drove on a few, but didn't really realize fully what we were missing. The Snowy Mountain Byway was fantastic. It didn't add much time to our trip, and the scenery was great. It takes you through the Medicine Bow National Park and by Medicine Bow Peak. There is a little pull off there with some trails, a little stone observation deck, and a latrine. A little travel note: bring plenty of Lysol sanitizing wipes in the little canisters. They are fantastic to use on door knobs, hotel remotes, and your hands when sinks aren't around. I did get a little obsessive with them, and would basically wipe down the whole hotel room, lol. The rest of this leg of the trip was down I-25, so not too much scenery to talk about.

Here's the pics:

Some river we kept crossing:

The scenic byway and the Medicine Bow National Forest:

Medicine Bow Peak:

Notice the branches are all on one side, this is due to constant prevailing winds:

The cool little overlook:

The ugliest bust of Lincoln ever:

Some neato rocks:

One fuel-up at 23.91mpg and an odometer reading of 12824.7 miles.

 

[peterk9]

Day 11:

Today we are running from Rawlins, leaving at 10:42am, to Colorado Springs, arriving at 6:12pm, via the Snowy Mountain Scenic Byway and I-25. Funny thing about these trips is no matter how much research you do, there are always things you find along the way that you wish you could have planned for all along the trip. Scenic Byways are one of those things. We saw a few of them before this point, and I think even drove on a few, but didn't really realize fully what we were missing. The Snowy Mountain Byway was fantastic. It didn't add much time to our trip, and the scenery was great. It takes you through the Medicine Bow National Park and by Medicine Bow Peak. There is a little pull off there with some trails, a little stone observation deck, and a latrine. A little travel note: bring plenty of Lysol sanitizing wipes in the little canisters. They are fantastic to use on door knobs, hotel remotes, and your hands when sinks aren't around. I did get a little obsessive with them, and would basically wipe down the whole hotel room, lol. The rest of this leg of the trip was down I-25, so not too much scenery to talk about.

Okay, photobucket is being a turd right now. I will upload the pics tomorrow

One fuel-up at 23.91mpg and an odometer reading of 12824.7 miles.

Looking forward to your pics. Having a great time following your trip.
BTW, I had one fill up yesterday as well. The previous fill up was almost 2 months ago on July 18th. Put in almost 14 gallons. It was the first time I got the low fuel warning and saw the gauge turn to a yellow colour. I'm at 6400 miles now. According to the information display, I spend a total of 12 hours and 1 minute driving during that time equaling about 1 1/2 days of your driving. Covered 324 miles.

Peter

 

[VinceL]

Wow, accidentally just erased everything I typed for Day 12, how irritating. Well, here we go again!

Day 12:

On the itinerary for today are Pikes Peak and the Garden of the Gods. Jennifer was on driving duty for the ascent phase of our peak visit. The drive was pretty cool, and every bit of fun we expected it to be. On the way up, the sky started to cloud up and frozen rain began to pelt the Ghost. Of course, that just got me started talking about slick and icy roads and how I hoped we didn't slip off the edge Unfortunately, my humor went unappreciated. Tough crowd. We made good time to the top and by the time we got there, the wind had picked up a bit and the frozen precip was a bit more steady. We looked around the gift shop and purchased the requisite magnets for the refrigerator and then sat down to share amongst ourselves two of the famous Pikes Peak donuts. The super special recipe only works at that altitude. All I can say is they were sweet and edible, not a whole lot more, haha. It was fun watching some of the poor suckers running around outside in t-shirts, shorts, and flip-flops.

Making the ascent:

The weather starting to move in:

The long and winding road:

Frozen stuff:

It's amazing how an extra 8,000 feet of altitude can change the weather. Down in Colo Spgs, it was sunny and in the low 80's. On the peak, it was in the low 40's and sleeting.

The storms at altitude:

Here comes the cog railway:

Here's the crew doing the tourist bit:

The Ghost doing the tourist bit:

What a view!

On the way down:

Check out the skid marks and the guard rail damage. Looks like someone was having a fun day

After making our way down and passing the mandatory break check (breaks had to be less than 300 degrees - the Odyssey in front of us failed), we passed by the 'North Pole' tourist trap and made our way to the Garden of the Gods. Standing next to those huge rock formations makes ya feel kinda small in comparison:

After impending rain (and some rather loud thunder) chased us from the Garden, we decided to head back to the hotel. On the way back, Jennifer recalled seeing a sign for "Seven Falls" and wondered what it was. We had time, so we decided to program the NAV (it was actually in there, again the NAV has impressed) and find out. What we found was pretty cool. It was a seven tiered waterfall at the end of a beautiful box canyon.

This picture can't begin to do it justice:

Here are the steps we climbed to get to the top:

Yep, 224 of those buggers. And the thing was, Christopher (3 years old) wanted to go to the top of the waterfall. We were dreading having to carry him up or down (or both!!). To our surprise, the little-man trudged his way up all by himself, and down all by himself, not needing, or even wanting, to be carried any of the way. That little guy is awesome, and quite the trooper.

The falls ended up being a fantastic surprise and awesome side trip. They also were the perfect end to the days travels.

Two fuel-ups to report for today with 23.51mpg and 16.83mpg (gotta love the Pikes Peak climb!!) and a total of 12942.4 miles on the odometer.

 

[2TimingTom]

On your way down from Pikes Peak, did anyone in the car fall asleep? I've never driven up Pikes Peak, but I've done Mt. Evans many times and each time everyone else in the car has fallen asleep. I'm guessing it has to do with the thickening oxygen.

And those skid marks- probably left over from the Pikes Peak Hill Climb. When was your trip? This year's race was Labor Day weekend.

 

[VinceL]

On your way down from Pikes Peak, did anyone in the car fall asleep? I've never driven up Pikes Peak, but I've done Mt. Evans many times and each time everyone else in the car has fallen asleep. I'm guessing it has to do with the thickening oxygen.

And those skid marks- probably left over from the Pikes Peak Hill Climb. When was your trip? This year's race was Labor Day weekend.

Nobody fell asleep, at least not that I saw, or they admitted, haha. Everyone was busy either driving (me) or snapping pictures and checking out the scenery. Christopher did nod off, but it was expected as his nap-time had come around

Mt. Evans looks like it would have been a nice drive to add to the trip. We'll catch that next time, lol.

The Pikes Peak IHC website listed the race having taken place on Aug 12th, so we were there about 2 weeks afterward.

 

[2TimingTom]

Oh yeah, it was the 12th. I forgot. It's normally around July 4th but because of the fires, they postponned it.

 

[VinceL]

Day 13:

This was a more relaxing 'take a ride' and 'take a drive' day. We headed out of Colo Spgs and made our way to Canon City for our train ride through the Royal Gorge. We sat in the 'Vista Dome' and enjoyed a mostly tasty gourmet lunch. The mixed greens salad with raspberry vinaigrette and candied walnuts was delicious. Jennifer and Christopher had the grilled chicken which was just okay. It was a bit bland and slightly overcooked. The risotto was very good though. Stephen had the salmon and said it was very good. I had the pork osso bucco and it was good, and HUGE! Jennifer ended up working on it also as she wasn't overjoyed with hers, and there was no way I could finish mine. The dessert was a yummy cakey, moussey confection with dark, milk, and white chocolates. The ride was fun. The scenery was pretty cool and the attendants gave little talks along the way telling us about the geology and history of the canon. It was a 2 to 2.5 hour ride, and the perfect way to relax for a bit and grab a bite to eat.

Here's the depot and our train:

Our Conductor:

And the food:

Some of the scenery in the canyon as we ran along the Arkansas River:

Here we are riding the rapids:

LOL, not really...

We then drove to Albuquerque to overnight. A couple of stops along the way for play and stretch time made it a pretty long day. We left Colo Spgs at 10:07am and arrived in Albuquerque at 9:53pm.

Hmmm...

Where's NORAD?? Should be around here somewhere...

There it is:

Kinda is, from my investigations using Google Maps satellite view, what I photographed looked more like the back door to the mountain. The other entrance seemed to be blocked from view from the freeway by the landscape.

Hey look, it's the world's largest rocking chair:

And here, we are getting closer to our destination and enjoying a beautiful sunset:

One fuel-up for the day coming in at 21.18mpg with an odometer reading of 13367.6 miles. It seemed like every time we entered New Mexico, the mileage would drop, even when using up the rest of a Colorado or Texas tank of gas. Weird.

 

[GRNMACHINE]

Beautiful Pics!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Javelin62]

Awesome pictures Vince! I really enjoy reading your daily trip log

I hope to get out there to see that part of the country some day!

 

[VinceL]

Beautiful Pics!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks! Had a ton of fun taking them

Awesome pictures Vince! I really enjoy reading your daily trip log

I hope to get out there to see that part of the country some day!

Glad you are tagging along, and I definitely recommend taking the time. We had originally planned on going to Florida and doing some of the things the southeast has to offer, but we figured summer heat and humidity would be less fun. I thought about it for a while (this trip was my graduation and birthday present from my traveling posse), and threw out Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone. It grew from there and at one point, Mount Rushmore had been deleted for shortness of time (hehe, 16 days is not enough time ), until I came up with the hybrid fly/drive vacation for the rest of my posse. We took those extra two days and added back Mount Rushmore and the very last part of the vacation that we will be coming to in the next few days.

I had the fortune of traveling overseas when I was in my teens with my parents, and I thought that was the coolest thing. Little did I know how much of what the good ol' U.S. of A. had to offer, and what I was missing. That will be rectified in the future, but I am sure Europe will be added in the future (my wife gets tired of me saying "been there, done that" watching the Discovery Channel ).

As I said earlier, Hawaii is on the block next. After that, I've thrown out doing the whole of Old Route 66 and I have been toying with the idea of rediscovering the Lincoln Highway (as much of the original 1913 route as possible). Those should keep us busy for a while

 

[VinceL]

On a side note, it was nice moving into flatter country. I was getting tired of the Gray Ghost turning into a gas chamber every time it had to downshift to pull a hill (which was A LOT!!). I do hope they find a solution to this problem soon. It is the one thing that really irritates me about the car.

 

[grrtrainman]

Vince:

Now you’ve really done it. You took a spectacular train ride! Those Vista Domes are great, huh?! How well I remember them when we took the Southwest Chief to Calif.
My wife and I take the train as much as possible, (sorry Explorer), and usually make the trips in the sleeper cabins. The seats and food on the trains are just like those you find on planes. NOT !!! BTW, you were so smart NOT going to Florida this time of the year. Unbearable heat and humidity. We don’t head down to our SW Florida home until after Halloween! Thanks for the virtual vacation and the superb photography!

David

 

[VinceL]

Vince:

Now you’ve really done it. You took a spectacular train ride! Those Vista Domes are great, huh?! How well I remember them when we took the Southwest Chief to Calif.
My wife and I take the train as much as possible, (sorry Explorer), and usually make the trips in the sleeper cabins. The seats and food on the trains are just like those you find on planes. NOT !!! BTW, you were so smart NOT going to Florida this time of the year. Unbearable heat and humidity. We don’t head down to our SW Florida home until after Halloween! Thanks for the virtual vacation and the superb photography!

David

Yeah, the vista dome was definitely worth the extra dough. Our friend Stephen wasn't so sure about it before we got going, but it didn't take long before all he could say was "Oh yeah, we are doing the vista dome again! It is so worth it!". Our taking train rides on vacations has become a bit of a tradition now. For our California vacation, we rode on the Napa Valley Wine Train (highly recommended) on a lark, as it was our first rail experience. It was a great way to start. When we went for our Grand Canyon vacation, we took the Grand Canyon Railway. For our Texas vacation, we rode the Austin Steam Train. We have also taken a ride on the Texas State Railroad in Rusk. Having ridden those, we figured we should be able to squeeze in a train ride somehow. That is when we came across the Royal Gorge Route Railroad. In fact, we found a book at the gift store in the depot that listed the excursion railroads all over the U.S., so I think we will be getting some good ideas for the future.

As for Florida, I have relatives there and have spent a lot of time with them on summer vacations and knew we would be in for hot and humid. One of the big reasons we wanted to go was to catch the last of a special tour of Cape Canaveral and the launch pads. I hated to have missed that, but a tropical system decided to grace Florida with its presence while we would have been there, so things would not have gone well in the long run.

You're welcome for the virtual vacation (that's really funny!). I have been working on my photographic technique (I am very much an amateur) again, since during school I wasn't able to really keep practiced on it. I had forgotten a lot of things that were slow to come back to me. I'll try my best to keep up with it now. I just can't wait to get back out there and start shooting again

 

[MikeTheExplorer]

VinceL AKA "Ghost Driver"

On my search for reviews and comments on the 2013 Ford Explorer, I stumbled upon this thread on google and I have to say that I'm more than impressed, not only with the way you are entertaining and taking everyone on your trip, but the way the community comes together and chimes in on your trips and other threads, everyone is so friendly here. I had to register to this website just to make these comments.
Why was I looking for a explorer review? Me and my family (2 Children) are looking for a new crossover, we are debating between the New Ford Explorer and the GMC Acadia. However I don't want to steal the spotlight this thread has, I will create a new one for that.
You have inspired me with this thread and I want to tell you again you are doing an excellent job. Love all the pictures and the daily diary posts. Keep it up please!

 

[FordMomof3]

Vince - when you first started posting about your trip, I was gonna throw out the old "if there are no pictures - it didn't really happen" - looks like you've taken it to heart my friend! The pictures are FABULOUS!! Thanks so much for taking the time to journal your trip and illustrate it at the same time! Beautiful beautiful country!

 

[VinceL]

VinceL AKA "Ghost Driver"

On my search for reviews and comments on the 2013 Ford Explorer, I stumbled upon this thread on google and I have to say that I'm more than impressed, not only with the way you are entertaining and taking everyone on your trip, but the way the community comes together and chimes in on your trips and other threads, everyone is so friendly here. I had to register to this website just to make these comments.
Why was I looking for a explorer review? Me and my family (2 Children) are looking for a new crossover, we are debating between the New Ford Explorer and the GMC Acadia. However I don't want to steal the spotlight this thread has, I will create a new one for that.
You have inspired me with this thread and I want to tell you again you are doing an excellent job. Love all the pictures and the daily diary posts. Keep it up please!

Welcome to the Forum MiketheExplorer! I'm glad you are enjoying the thread as I've been having fun adding to it, and the vacation was a blast!

Hehe, "Ghost Driver", I like that!

This really is a great community, with some very knowledgeable folks here more than willing to help out. One thing I would suggest that will make your life easier (and make the information on the forum more accessible) is to familiarize yourself with the search feature. It is a life saver on such a large forum as this

Don't worry about a thread hijack (though I appreciate the concern), as I wanted to keep this thread open to all questions and comments. If there is something you are wondering about, feel free to ask I always try to do my best to answer, or find an answer.

I commented in your other thread about our selecting the Explorer and a few of the reasons. I forgot that the GMC was freshened for 2013, so I am not sure what might have changed for the new model year. A couple of people have gone from an Explorer to an Acadia, so they must be pretty comparable in those people's minds. Those folks have mainly been the early adopters who were having first year bugs with their Ex's, and some were having a lot of problems (that is why we never buy first year vehicles , it was one of Dad's golden rules!). In reading this thread, you have seen what we like (a lot of things) and are not fond of with our car (thankfully not much). Would we buy it again? In a second, without a doubt. MFT (MyFord Touch) can be touchy at times, lol, and when they iron out all of the quirks, it will be awesome. But the vehicle itself is perfect for us. We special ordered, and it was worth the wait. I think we will order our vehicles from now on after this experience. It truly is our car, and when spending this much dough, it pays to get exactly what you want!

Welcome to the forum again, and enjoy the ride

 

[VinceL]

Vince - when you first started posting about your trip, I was gonna throw out the old "if there are no pictures - it didn't really happen" - looks like you've taken it to heart my friend! The pictures are FABULOUS!! Thanks so much for taking the time to journal your trip and illustrate it at the same time! Beautiful beautiful country!

LOL, I was sure to post pictures because I razzed you so much before. I didn't want to fall into that trap

As you can see, photobucket and I have become fast friends. I was beginning to worry there were too many pics, but the response is positive, so I'll keep on with it.

I'm really getting a kick out of the comments, and having a lot of fun putting it all together. Every time I post again, searching through all of the pictures and picking out the ones I like, it gets me thinking about it again and I just sit here and smile and it usually gets Jennifer and I talking about it again (though she did want to kill me for posting that pic of her sleeping, but hey, it's my thread and I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do - full knowing that she will get me back somehow, someday).

We have a couple of days to go, so enjoy the rest of the ride

Oh and before I forget, reading your new thread about playing "Carwash" on the radio reminded me of our first big day of driving in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was our first experience with twisty roads with severe drop-offs. Jennifer was doing great and then it popped into my head a particular song that would be amazingly appropriate as navigated all of these twists, turns, switch-backs, and curves. A little Jan and Dean if you will... "won't come back from Dead Man's Curve". For some reason, Jennifer didn't think it was as funny as I did?? Some people!

 

[VinceL]

Oh yeah, it was the 12th. I forgot. It's normally around July 4th but because of the fires, they postponned it.

Oh okay, that makes sense. Speaking of the fires, when we were starting up the Pikes Peak Highway, as we were passing through Manitou Springs you could see signs all over the town thanking the fire fighters for their bravery. It was really touching, and looking at the hills scorched just above, and I mean just above, the edges of the town, it must have been frightening. Give it up for firefighters. True heroes in every respect!