To Boulder (or "I'm not in Kansas Anymore" or "America the Beautiful")

Yesterday Katie found information about a lavender farm.  We were (obviously) quite interested in this.  If you've met me, you know I love purple.  Katie also likes lavender (particularly tea).  We planed on going there to see the fields, but we were confused about the hours for the place. They were not clearly listed on the website, and calling their phone number was not helpful at all.  So Katie found another shop near by that sold the lavender farm's products.  We decided to go to the shop first and determine how we felt about the farm after that.

We got to the shop and bought a couple of lavender things. (I got honey with lavender, and I'm pretty excited about it.)  Then we tried to call the farm again - still no answer.  Even so, we decided that to head to the farm; we figured worst case scenario - we'd just take pictures of the field and enjoy the smell.  With this mentality we drove off.

It was officially only about 30 min away from where we were.  But the last mile or so was all dirt roads, and I didn't want Cloud to do some major off-roading.  I took it really slow (which drove Katie nuts, but hey, it's my car).  Eventually we got a neighborhood which had one house with a bunch of lavender in the front and back.  Oh.  Not really what we had imagined.  So that was disappointing: no tour of the farm, no farm shop, no farm.  Oh well.  We took pictures anyways and laughed.

Farm?  I don't think so.

Then it was time to start driving for the day.  We had an estimated 7 hr 15 min day.  Another long one.  But as I said, yesterday wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, so we weren't too worried.  When we started going Garmin told us to drive 411 miles on the same road, at which point we simply don't take an exit, so it was even longer than that driving on the same road.  A new record.

We were actually very impressed with Kansas.  I think it's the most attractive state we've been through so far. (Although I went through the first day mostly in the dark, so I might have liked it the best.  I don't know.)  The beginning of the state (yesterday's drive and part of today) was slightly rolling hills - not so much it felt like a roller coaster, but enough that you were always interested in what came over the next ridge.  The second half of the day (most of today's drive) is flat.  But still pretty.  I think visiting in May is a good decision for KS - it's in the growing season, so there's lots of fields of green. (Although not lavender...)  There was one section of the driving I did which was particularly beautiful.  Smallish hills all covered in green, and then when you rounded the corner - a field of wind mills.  I've seen a couple in VA, but nothing on this scale.  It was really cool.   Katie took tons of pictures (I was driving).  The whole thing was just very cool and we enjoyed it.

We eventually stopped for lunch.  There was a small miscommunication here.  I thought Katie wanted lunch, she thought I did.  Turns out neither of us were hungry.  But I didn't realize that until after I was half way through ordering my food.  Oh well.  I needed the calories, right?  After filling up the gas it was Katie's turn to drive, which meant I could take pictures (of flat, mostly green Kansas and cows), and work on my blog post for the day.

After yet more driving we saw signs for "The word's biggest Prairie Dog".  Katie got really excited about this, so we decided to visit.  They had plenty of signs along the highway, but they were all listing the attractions of the place, and none gave the next exit number, store name, or useful information like that.  After a bit of wondering (and creative interpretation of their signs) we found the place. It was such a tourist shop - obviously catering to those who might want to laugh at the mid-west (a group we fit into).  We bought a couple of post cards and then went to see the animals.

The best part was the prairie dogs.  They were just wandering around the area, free to roam.  It was cool since we could walk up to them and take photos, but if we got too close they'd go down into their holes and hide.  But the rest of the animals were not so lucky.  They had terrible living conditions – cages too small and too many animals in them.  It was really depressing.  You'd think that if you're charging money for people to see he animals they could afford nicer places for them.

After that I kept driving.  We crossed the state line into Colorado.  Everything looked the same.  (Shame the natural environment doesn't reflect the arbitrarily determined political lines.) As soon as we crossed the line Colorado had 75 MPH speed limit signs.  I don't think I've ever seen those.  Then Katie saw a sign for a welcome center which we stopped at to pickup post cards (duh).

We were pretty impressed with the time we made.  It was a long day, but we managed it.  Although we were thrilled to arrive and get out of the car.  Two days like that are just not enjoyable.  It'll be nice to have a  break tomorrow when we go exploring in Boulder.  But the views from the road were absolutely spectacular.  I took so many pictures as we drove along.  Katie and I were blown away by the mountains, the green, the fields, everything.  It was amazing.  You really have to see it to understand.

Once we got to Katie's aunt's house (a different aunt), we got a bit of a rest.  She took us on a tour of their house (which I am in love with, I hope I can have something like this when I “grow up”).  Then we all went walking along Pearl Street.  It's an open air, walk around mall.  Very cute, very... hippie?  I'm not sure what the right word is, there were yoga shops and candy stores, restaurants and camping gear, art stores and performers.  Anyways, it was a nice stroll.  Once we finished stretching our legs a bit we meandered off to dinner.  She took us to an amazing tapas restaurant where we could have a little of everything.  It was a lot of fun and FILLING!  (More food, oh dear.  Scratch that, oh yum!)  Finally we went home and got ready for bed.

A long day, but a good one.

Day's Map