by Barbara Taylor & Homer S. Sewell III
What have you been doing since last we visited two weeks ago? We have moved further west and are spending a few days at the end of the month of February here in beautiful Colorado Springs, Colorado within sight of Pikes Peak.
Sunday evening two weeks ago while we were still in Kansas we went to see the new movie, Message in a Bottle. It was a good love story for Valentine's Day but had a sad ending. Have you seen it yet?
We started off the week in Independence and then on to Andale, Augusta, Russell, Kinsley, Lakin, Garden City, Johnson, Grainfield and Brewster, Kansas. Russell is where Senator Bob Dole was born. We had hoped to be able to meet him but he only stops by once and while for a short visit and was not there while we were. We spent the weekend in a small campground in Oakley, Kansas. On Monday we headed for Colorado.
On the way we had our first of three tires blow out on us. Even though the AbeMobile only had 7,000 miles on it when we bought it and now has 12,500, I guess the 10 year age on them is catching up with us. While waiting for the Good Sam Club to come from Wichita to change the tire, we went into a restaurant to get some supper. While there we met and spent some time visiting with a man by the name of Jim who at 66 and retired from the Post Office spends several months a year bicycling all over America. He was a very interesting man and has seen a lot of our beautiful country by bike.
We made our first stop in Colorado in Brush and then on to Haxtun, Greeley and Karval. Homer left me Tuesday night while he drove the VW (the little red AbeMobile Junior) 200 miles up to Douglas, Wyoming to speak to a school there. He ran into high winds and blowing snow while on that trip but said the scenery was awesome. Karval will give Roscoe, Missouri a run for the smallest town we've visited. It was all of six square blocks in size and the school Homer spoke to was Kindergarten through twelfth grade with only 90 students.
On Thursday while Homer was at school in Greeley, I spent the day in two different repair shops getting eight new tires put on and an oil change to the tune of $1,200. Friday we drove on over to Colorado Springs where we are spending a beautiful, sunny weekend. The temperatures are in the mid 70's for the first time in a long time. We went for a walk around the old section of downtown Colorado Springs and discovered a Goodwill Store where we found two more music boxes to add to my collection. We also stumbled into a store where they make thousands of custom character dolls which sell for $37.50 to hundreds of dollars each. They have had several ABE dolls in the past and are working on a new young Lincoln reclined against a pile of logs and reading a book. They were quite unique and Homer may be able to help promote them in his travels.
This weekend we drove up almost to the top of 14,100 feet Pike's Peak. At about 14 miles up of the total of 20 miles, the gravel road started to get very narrow and icy as we neared the top and we decided to turn around before we reached the top. It was a scary but spectacular drive. I've never seen such distant views of lakes, valleys and snow covered mountains. On Sunday we went for a drive through Garden of the Gods park here in the Colorado Springs area. It has some very unusual rock formations something like some of the ones we saw in the Badlands of South Dakota. It was beautiful.
Homer made some stuffed peppers and we invited our next door neighbors ,Walter and Sabrina, to eat with us. They are from California and are spending time here in Colorado selling computer software. They are also full-time RV'ers and live out of their fifth-wheel camper. I saw on the National news that you had some snow so I hope you had an opportunity to enjoy it. Hope everyone there in Georgia is doing well. If any of you want to e-mail us you can reach us at Abe Usa 16 @ AOL.com.
Until next time.....Barbara and ABE signing off for now.