Our last night in Kansas had been hellish... the weather that Kansasians tell is is normal for this time of year returned, after a National-worth of cool weather, and the night was warm and muggy. Shady, who pants like a freight train only twice as loud, was in the crate on the bed right next to my pillow, so she could pant right into my ear. Occasionally she would fall asleep and shut up, but that only made it worse when she woke and resumed panting. In addition, around 4 AM some kids thought it would be a great joke to set off fireworks in the RV parking area and get all the dogs barking.

All in all, we departed Lawrence groggy and sleepless and were anxious to get out of the Kansas climate as quickly as possible. Therefore we passed up WaKeeny, KS where we had been scheduled to stop, and drove on to Limon, CO where the KOA advertised "cool nights." Thank Goodness, the night was indeed cool and we had no problems with panting dogs on our pillows... but, we were treated to an authentic Plains thunderstorm instead. Great brilliant forks of lightning and booms of thunder that rattle your brain in your skullbone, and rain slatting on the RV roof like castanets. We humans quite enjoyed lying warm in our beds protected from it all, and Shady, Bonnie, and Singer looked around a little and then went back to sleep, but Windy and Libby utterly freaked out. Shaking, panting dogs rushing in all directions looking for a hole where it wasn't storming, climbing on top of us for security only to leap away again when the next thunder rumbled. Windy finally jammed herself in behind the toilet in the bathroom and waited out the storm there, while Jeannine had to hold the trembling Libby through it. All in all, we departed from Limon once again in sleep-arrears.

Which brings me to the point of all this rambling on about sleep. This morning we are in New Castle, CO, near Aspen and we slept with clean crisp air and the sound of a mountain stream rushing by a few yards away. Woke up feeling like a princess. The only thing lacking right now is a hot tasty breakfast... which I will adjourn temporarily to go rustle up. This is motorhoming at its finest!!

Limon is less than 2 hours from Denver, so our trip plan has flexed again. We had planned to stop just past Denver on Tuesday night, and hit the Rocky Mountains on Wednesday. Instead, this day's journal covers the mountains. The plains turn into mountains with downright shocking suddenness! All the way up to Denver, the country looks like this-->
Which has slight undulations (not really big enough to be called hills) so it is not as totally flat as western Kansas, but it is still very much Plains country!
Denver itself sits on flat land, so while the city is big, it is still all really Plains.

Then, after a truly superb lunch at a Mimi's Cafe on the other side of Denver, we got back on I70 and within 30 minutes were driving through this----------->

The Rockies are particularly beautiful in springtime, when everything that can be green is green, there are gorgeous wildflowers everywhere, and the peaks are still stylishly white-capped.

The thunderstorms the previous night left us a legacy of
puffy cumulus clouds dressing up the sky. A great
day to drive through the Rockies!

Coming down the long western slope of the mountains, so unlike the sudden upshoot of the eastern face, the road went through Glenwood Canyon, a stunning canyon cut by a rushing river in the bottom. Alas, there was absolutely no place to pull over and take a picture, and Jeannine (who takes pictures through the windshield while I am driving) was up in the cabover bed snoozing. So no photos of it... but take my word for it, it was a highlight of the day. The road itself is an engineering miracle because there is no room for an Interstate in this canyon so they built the whole thing, miles and miles of road, freestanding on pylons above the rocky V side of the canyon.

Coming next -- trailing down the rest of the western face of the Rockies, into the red rock country of Utah, with Arches National Park the highlight of the day.