The Garden of the Gods

We're camping for most of our adventure this summer, and we pitched our tent in Colorado Springs for two nights, beginning on Wednesday. We were mostly prepared for it with our tent, sleeping bags, and Thermarest mattresses, except that Jake had convinced me to take his nice sleeping bag for the summer, rather than my warm one. But we're coming from Florida...and it was 35 degrees when we got up at the crack of dawn on Thursday, after a long and shivery night!  We had to get the car jump started (it didn't like the temperature either), but it was still pretty early when we warmed up with a hearty breakfast at Wade's Cafe before hitting Garden of the Gods before the crowds.

The park is so beautiful, and it was such a gorgeous day that we took dozens of pictures. 

We walked around for about an hour, before we had to leave for our tour at the Wolf Conservation Center (more on that next), and then came back later for a longer hike and picnic lunch. The sky remained bright blue, and we even got to see the Thunderbirds fly over the Air Force Academy graduation, if just barely. A fantastic day.

And we'll stop at a thrift shop for more blankets before our next night out!

Faster, Higher, Stronger

We rolled into Colorado Springs on Tuesday afternoon, and after hitting a Goodwill thrift shop to find some of the things we forgot to bring, we went to the Olympic Training Center. Besides the world-class athletes walking around the campus, one interesting fact is that they take only cash and one type of credit card: Visa, an official sponsor of the US Olympic team.  At least that meant that we couldn't be tempted to spring for the more expensive "behind the scenes" tour.

Admission includes a tear-jerking video of Americans winning gold medals at recent Olympics, and then a tour of the grounds. We saw the weight room, pool, wrestling room, boxing room, shooting range, men's gymnastics room (where the guys were practicing!), and the gym, which was set up for floor volleyball at the time.

I tried to encourage Hans to focus on triathlon  so he can train here someday, Miriam is going to concentrate on the winter sledding sports, so she'd train at Lake Placid...as for me, I suspect I missed my chance.

Cadillac Ranch

We apparently have a tradition of going to Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas, every time we move, because this is now the third time the kids and I have stopped by. Our first visit was in the spring of 2013, when friends in Albuquerque told us about it and said we were going to drive past it anyway and should stop.

A public art installation since 1974, it's a strange place, a field off the side of the interstate where several old cars are stuck in the ground. And where tourists come to spray paint them, which is actually encouraged. 

Because of the wet spring, the only car we could get close to this time was the first (farthest right) one, although we know we have pictures from our first visit with the kids inside the second car. According to the guy selling key chains and jewelry made out of paint chips from the graffiti, it's usually dry, so I guess we've just been unlucky our last two stops.  The muck is at least ankle deep!

We considered bringing water colors in order to be more environmentally friendly, but in the end we scavenged the grounds for spray cans that still had some paint in them and waited our turn. Maybe this is as rebellious as we get?

Bowie

Tuesday found us driving across the Great State of Texas, from Tyler (near the Louisiana state line) to Amarillo.  Along the way, we went by a town that shares a name with one of my favorite people, so we stopped in to take a couple pictures of the sign to send to her.  It turns out that it's also home of the world's largest Bowie knife! 

There were a couple of signs describing Bowie knives and their history which were too covered with bird droppings to photograph, but a quick look on Wikipedia makes it fairly clear that Bowie, TX, and Bowie knives share a name, but not much else. But we got our photo op, which was really the most important part of our rest stop.

This isn't a knife...that's a knife!

And.. we're off!

We hit the road on Memorial Day Monday, with a drive out of Florida and across Alabama, Mississippi, and into Texas. So far we've only come up with a few things that we're missing. It's been a long last few weeks!

Here we go again!

After three wonderful years living, working, playing, and studying in Pensacola, Florida, we are packing to set off on another adventure!  We're moving back to Germany (albeit to a different location), and can't wait.  But in the meantime, the kids and I will be heading off on another coast-to-coast tour of the USA.  Stay tuned!