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Here we are ready to head out on our journey. We took Andy's car because it's almost brand new; we started with only ~ 12,700 miles on it. Now that we're back, it's got over 17,000 miles! |
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We stopped in Woodward, OK (yes, Mike and Rebecca, I messed up that darn city again! argh!) on our way west through the Oklahoma panhandle. Left to right are Andrew Culp, Jason Culp, and Andy Taylor. Andrew Culp is an undergrad meteorology major and a friend from church. He's in woodward for the summer and we stopped at his place for a brief visit with his very nice family. |
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Isn't the Oklahoma panhandle rather flat and treeless? This picture is taken from just east of Boise City (pronounced "Bois" with only 1 syllable, not like the capital of Idaho, "Bois-ee") |
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Yea! Brad's first new state of the trip! We headed straight through the OK panhandle and entered New Mexico east of Clayton. Now it's on to Colorado and the rest of our trip. |
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This is a not-so-crisp image of an old volcano. We didn't have time to stop and look around, but it's in a nice area. I promise that better pics are on the way - with the new digital camera it took me until about day 10 to finally get the hang of all the different lighting/zoom capabilites. |
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A new elevation record for Brad (not counting airplanes). This pass is just south of the Colorado border. |
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Yea! State # 2 for Brad! But isn't the sign a bit ironic? I mean, "colorful" isn't exactly what comes to mind from that drab brown sign! |
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After stopping at the REI (it's kinda like a Sam's club but for outdoors folks) in Colorado Springs to buy a Coleman cookstove and National Parks Pass, we detoured through the Air Force Academy. Didn't see many cadets; they were probably eating since it was rather late. Luckily we found a hole in the fence around the stadium ... otherwise this picture wouldn't have been. Notice the hint of storms in the distance ... meteorologists just can't escape the weather, can we?! |
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Brad goofing off at the main tourist-type area of the academy. This probably is also the main classroom etc. area for the cadets, but We didn't stay long enough to find out. |
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I wish the restricted areas weren't so restrictive ... this picture turned out alright, but doesnt do this awesome chapel justice at all. A better pic would've been to venture out onto the parade grounds (which were off-limits to tourists) and frame the chapel with the mountains in the background. Oh well - here's Andy in front of it anyway. |
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Denver at last! Day 1 turned out to be our longest mileage day of the entire trip - something like 600 miles! Chris Peters was kind enough to lend his downtown apartment to us for the night. Denver is a neat city, I must say, although they need to do more to protect out-of-towners who decide to go jogging through the city and come across very short fences not-very-well-protecting very large and mean-looking ferocious dogs. Ask me about that one sometime - probably my most frightening running experience in 4 yrs of jogging! |