June 12-15, 2018 Wray to Fort Collins, Colorado

Woo hoo we are back in Colorado. On the very eastern border.

Traversing south western Nebraska we  passed the Harold Warp Pioneer Village in Minden. It is supposed to be a nice museum that depicts America's progress since 1830. 50,000 historical items 28 in buildings and 350 antique automobiles, trucks, motorcycles, snow mobiles as well as 100 tractors, airplanes, early locomotives etc. Will have to stop another time, AAA says to allow 3 hours minimum. We passed the town of Funk home of the Funk Lagoon, which is a large wet land that has 1000's of migrating birds in the spring and fall. Entering Dundy county, declared livestock friendly county,  we crossed over into the mountain time zone, lost an hour, will have to be getting up earlier for the same time of day. Past Haigler in the south westernmost town in Neb, and called the CornerStone of Nebraska, into  Colorado. We are now camped in Wray, Colorado- All American city at the very eastern edge of the state at the Hitch'n post campground. It is a commercial park, nice quiet part of town, but not much shade or grass and next to some kind of heavy farm equipment place.  Nice place to stop after driving 4 hours today.

John took me out to dinner in beautiful historic downtown Wray tonight. Sunset through the farm equipment next door to  the RV park tonight. The sun turned red from all the smoke. Colorado is starting to burn up.

More sunset tonight. The lid to the basket is taking shape now. 

We drove from eastern Colorado to Fort Collins today. Eastern Colorado looks alot like Nebraska, except instead of corn as far as the eye can see it is grass and hay. 

We have never been to this part of Colorado before. We drove through Otis (with a garage sale sign on the welcome sign) and Akron. We have been below 1000 feet all winter and all of the sudden the elevation is climbing. Saw a cool bicycle sculpture in Fort Morgan and came through  Ault- a unique town. When you turn off I-25 into Fort Collins where we live the exit is Fort Collins/Ault. I always wondered what Ault was like. Now I have seen it. Driving into Fort Collins you can see the Rocky Mountains on the horizon.

Sunset tonight from old town Fort Collins. We had dinner on the patio at the Rio tonight with Jimjim. He is in town from Carbondale working on his rental just down the street from us. It was nice to see him and nice to be home. 

We finished our 8th year of living in the motorhome today. Each year is a different color. This year I used white so it would show up on the map. I quilted this map and have kept track of our travels. I am always amazed each time we come back that I have this fabulous glass studio to play in.

So far I have made a batch of earrings and am fusing a bunch of old earrings that never sold together into larger pieces to use as centers for my baskets. I sent home 37 lbs of long leaf pine needles from the south this year, plus brought home at least 15 more. So I have 50 pounds of pine needles to sort, boils some in glycerine and dye some.  The needles start like the lighter ones, then after glycerine look like the ones drying on the lawn.  Should keep me in baskets for a few years. 

I rode my bike right before sunset while it was still light. Here is the sun at that time.