Lil Blue takes a trip to Colorado Part 1

     We went to visit my folks in Boulder Colorado, see our niece, finally meet her fiance Jon, and visit with a couple of friends of ours that are probably the nicest, most down to earth, and wonderful friends you could have Steve and Ann.  We got creative on packing, but had plenty of room in the trunk for our clothes bag, bathroom bag, and laptop.  We had a cooler in the back seat with drinks, a pillow and blanket (I have to have my squishy pillow, and Lori used them both to nap while driving across Kansas).
     First off, if you've never been, once you get west of Topeka..it's a really boring drive.  Nothing but miles and miles of nothing but fields broken up here and there by towns/small cities, the windmill "farm", and sporadic rest stops.  The only radio stations that you're able to receive for any length of time are religious, and farming/news.  We didn't get satellite radio, but have loaded a few hours of classic rock onto a memory stick for when we couldn't get anything good on the radio.     The drive out was uneventful, though fighting the cross winds was a struggle at times.  On our stop for lunch in a town in western Kansas, Lori just had to get this picture because of my love of Star Trek.

     Most of the drive across Kansas, I was only getting about 30mpg fighting the winds.  I had set my display up to show instant mpg as I was driving, and it fluctuated between 25-30 mpg for the most part, until we got out of the winds.  At some point in Colorado, mind you we were still slowly climbing uphill into the Rockies, it started reading 50-60mpg.  The Fiat is only rated for 40mpg highway, so this made me happy..no idea why.

     We finally reached Denver, and I will have to say that driving something as small as Lil Blue in Denver is not, as my dad said, for the faint of heart.  Big ole beat up trucks tailgating and speeding by (they looked like they belong more where we live..but one thing about midwesterners, they try to keep their trucks in decent looking shape as a matter of pride), and no one doing the speed limit.  It was like we took a wrong turn and ended up in the middle of a race track with hundreds of entrants, and every type of vehicle possible.  Finally navigated our way thru Denver and worked our way up to Boulder.  Ok...the scenery is breathtaking.  The view above Boulder is amazing.

We finally made it.  Total drive time was about 13 to 14 hours.  Lori said the Fiat actually felt more comfortable than her SUV (she did sleep a lot along the way).  

     On one of our days we went and met up with our friends Ann and Steve at an ice cream place on the other side of Golden, CO (think Coors).  The drive there was nice, though congested.  Had a great time visiting with them, and wishing we lived closer..they truly are the definition of "good people".  When we were on the way there, Lori spied a sign that pointed to what she thought was a historic mansion across from the Coors brewery (I was to busy paying attention to the road and the Colorado drivers), so on our return trip, since we had time, we decided to go check it out.  Turns out it's Buffalo Bill's, and his wife's, grave site atop this mountain.  Now, this road, I don't think anyone would've really tried their luck on really.  Did have a couple of kids (20 somethings) in a late 90's Camaro try to handle the curves like we could, and couldn't keep up.  They were squealing tires around each corner, while Lil Blue handled them like she was on rails.  They were having to take them slower than us also, so kept trying to speed up to catch up to us, then having to slow down for the bends.  They pulled over somewhere midway up.  We kept going up, and up and up.

Lori thought these were the actual mountains, and couldn't understand these were just the foothills.  The views are amazing.  It seemed like the road wouldn't stop going up.  But we finally reached the top.  It's a nice place to visit.  Nice little museum.  Big gift shop where we picked up a few items. and visited the gravesites.

Continued