Day 1: And Away We Go!

We Wish the House (& Dino) Farewell, and One False Start Later We are Off on Our Great Alaska Adventure!


Dino Takes M's Place in the Garage

 This morning M ceded her spot in the Garage to Dino, and we wished him well as we were about to embark on our Great Alaska Adventure.

So we locked up the house, set the house alarm, closed the garage, waved goodbye to Dino as he disappeared, and set out.

Here's how it went:




Yes, that was a local Jeffco Sheriff car you saw heading in the direction of our house.  Could there possibly be some problem with our alarm system?  When I set it before we left, it didn't engage right away.

So as you can see we turned around, and drove back up to the house to take a look.  Sure enough, the sheriff was parked right at our house and told us they were responding to a silent panic alarm.  Apparently my alarm remote malfunctioned and set off the panic alarm rather than setting "Away" mode.

 We explained to the Sheriff-- and complimented her on the fast response--and then went back in the house to check the system and ensure that it was properly set.  That done, we took off once more.

 From then on, things went smoothly.  We even saw this truck carrying Cookie Monster on our drive out of Denver.
Me See Cookie Down There!

 Today's drive takes us out of Denver and to Rock Springs, WY-- largely via Route 80--about 5 hours from the house.  The picture below is pretty representative of the drive-- flat wide-open spaces.
Representative Shot of Driving Route 80 in Wyoming

You might not know that one stretch of Route 80 in Wyoming is the same as old Route 30 (also known as the Lincoln Highway).  We used to drive Route 30 all the time in Ohio, so it was fitting to visit it again on this stretch.  To emphasize the point, this statue of Lincoln is placed prominently along the road.
Bust of Lincoln on the Lincoln Highway (aka Route 80 in WY)

 We made good time on most of the trip, but were tripped up by one traffic jam caused by the following accident.  The day was beautiful, the wind was virtually non-existent, you could see for miles, and traffic was reasonably light for a summer Friday.  


We were mystified as to how this happened, but apparently that driver was having a far worse day than we were.  We counted ourselves lucky.

 We pulled into the Rock Springs Holiday Inn at about 5PM, and it is here we leave you until tomorrow.

 --Lisa



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