Day 23-July 28, 2017-We’re not in Kansas anymore
Drove 217 miles in 5-1/2 hours. Gained an hour when we crossed into Mountain Time.
Cooler, only about 82, sprinkles in the afternoon, more rain and cooler at night.
We’ve been on US 83 for 701 miles, through ND, SD, NE and KS. We’ve seen things we didn’t expect and really enjoyed the road and the views and the adventures we had. We’ve met new people and learned a lot about different ways of life. And we can now put push pins in the gap in our map that is US 83. But now it’s time to move on to other places. We started out going west on I-70 through more farms, the landscape as flat as a pancake. Very windy, we can see how tornadoes form here. There are a lot of wind generators taking advantage of the winds. We continued our book on tape. Both of us think the main character is a real idiot but it’s easy to follow and keeping our interest. In less than an hour we were in Colorado and into Mountain Time. At Limon we turned on to US 24 for the final 80 miles to Colorado Springs. We saw a couple of Pronghorn Antelope romping in the meadows. Got into the campground early (1:15) because of the time change. It’s right in the middle of Colorado Springs and should be easy to get anywhere from here. When I opened the dinette slide it made a clunking sound and wouldn’t open all the way. Uh Oh! Harry called a few repair shops and got the gamut of stories from “I can probably fit you in any time after August 18th,” to “Please Leave a Message” to “I’ll call you when I can come, maybe Tuesday”, to “I’ll try to make it tomorrow”. We’re depending on the last one. In the meantime I got us tickets for a baseball game tonight, The Colorado Springs Sky Sox vs. The Tacoma Rainiers. We’ve seen the Sky Sox play numerous times, the latest in Omaha July 17th, but never at home. They play at Security Service Field on the other side of the city and are AAA affiliates of the Milwaukee Brewers. Took about 20 minutes to get there, lots of traffic around here. We picked up the tickets at Will Call and they gave us two free tickets to another game this season but they’re not back in town ‘til August 8th so we gave the tickets to somebody else. Nice stadium, lots of fans. It rained off and on the whole game but we brought ponchos so we stayed dry. Got cooler too, glad we brought jackets. It was down to 64 when we left the game. We like to sit over the dugout at first base and usually there’s no net there but they have new regulations this year and most of the stadiums are installing nets that go over both dugouts. It’s much safer if a ball comes sailing your way but it sort of blocks the view. Their mascot is Sox the Fox, a slinky looking red fox. Good game, went into an extra inning, but at the end of the 10th the Sox lost 4-3. They're still in first place. Fantastic fireworks show after the game.