Great American Road Trip – Part 1

A few weeks ago we undertook our longest road trip yet as a family. It spanned 9 states and put 3,172.4 miles on the odometer. And we all survived!

We left Milwaukee on a Wednesday morning, drove through parts of Illinois and Iowa, stopped for a dinner of world famous BBQ in Kansas City, MO, then spent the night in Topeka, KS. That Thursday we drove through the rest of Kansas before reaching our main destination in Evergreen, CO, for the next week. The return drive took us through part of Wyoming on our way to South Dakota, then finally one last day to get through Minnesota on our way back to Sconnie-land.

This would seriously end up being a novel if I tried to describe everything we saw and did, so I’ll just cover the highlights. You’ll notice this is “Part 1”, so in here I’ll show you some of the sites from the drive out and our stay in Colorado. The reason we went out there was to visit my sisters, brother-in-law, and brand new nephew, so we figured we’d see as much of Middle America as we could along the way. Here we go…

Day 1:  Our goal of this leg was to get to Kansas City, MO, where Ryan was dying to try Oklahoma Joe’s BBQ. So we did, and it was delicious. We had some daylight left after eating, so we drove another hour or so to Topeka, where we called it a night.

yuuummm!!

Day 2:  We started off the day by visiting the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site. Very cool. But the rest of Kansas is boring. So is eastern Colorado. We finally pulled into my sister and brother-in-law’s driveway in Evergreen, CO, that evening and let the engines rest.

 jumping on hotel beds is fun!

don’t do this. and no, that’s not our car

it was very hot and windy on our drive west

Days 3-8:  Fun had by all in central Colorado. Our nephew is completely adorable; the girls, my mom, sister, nephew, and I went on a train; we experienced a rodeo parade; we took in a concert at Red Rocks; we tried out as many breweries as we could manage in a day; and we saw some cool petrified stuff. We even got to experience the scare of forest fires starting while we were there. Thank god none reached my sister’s home, and no one we/they know was hurt by the handful of ones raging during our stay.

 Georgetown Loop Railroad

 rodeo parades and catching all that candy are simply exhausting

happy father’s day!

s’mores!

 Odell Brewing in Fort Collins, CO

New Belgium Brewing in Fort Collins

Left Hand Brewing in Longmont, CO

Oskar Blues Brewing in Longmont

“Big Stump” at Florissant Fossil National Monument

Trinity Brewing in Colorado Springs

 cousins! lana was most uncooperative

Ok, that’s enough pictures for today. Stay tuned, for there will be plenty more in “Part 2”. I can sense your anticipation building already, my friends.