On The Road Again

The next morning arrived much sooner than I would have liked.  Our hotel had a small restaurant, but it didn't open until 7:00, so we all got ready, packed our stuff in our borrowed suburban, and were ready and waiting for the buffet to open.  After a rather large breakfast (with way too much juice, which would become apparent a couple of bathroom stops in a very short amount of time later) the Simciks arrived at our hotel and we were on our way.  The guys were driving, and Brad was leading, until he very promptly missed the first exit.  Whoops!  We pulled over to wait for them, but the way they turned around passed our location on another street.  After a few minutes we hadn't seen them, so we called and found they were way ahead of us.  They pulled over, and then we passed them.  So, after a little vehicular leap-frog, we ended up in the lead. 

The guys drove most of the way, but in Alamosa we finally switched off, and it was the girls turn to drive.  Since Amy had been there before, she took the lead for this final stretch.  Once we turned on to highway 149, it was mountain driving.  I was trying to keep my eyes on the road, but Jerry was hanging out the window taking pictures - and who could blame him!  We definitely weren't in Oklahoma anymore:

At one point we came out into a fairly wide meadow, and there were these funny bush-looking things covering a good portion of it.  Then we realized that Amy was coming to a stop, because these bush things were crossing the road.  They were sheep!  There were baby lambs, and some had black faces, just like you see in the nursery rhyme books.  We slowly made our way through the see of sheep and were on our way:



Next we tackled Slumgullion Pass, which was very twisty with lots of steep roads.  I would have been extremely nervous if I had been in the lead, but I figured that if Amy could do it in the Tahoe, I could do it in the Suburban, although I fell a bit behind on a few occasions.  We thought we must be getting close when Amy turned off into a scenic overlook / rest area that overlooked the San Juan Mountains.  We piled out of the car and felt the cool weather for the first time:

The girls thought it was pretty, but they were "cold" and hopped back into the car pretty quickly.  The adults took their time stretching their legs, using the facilities, looking around again.  I think that Jerry was starting to relax and get into vacation mode.  The same could not be said for the kids, who were ready for the drive to be over.  They were hollering, "LET'S GO!"  It was almost the end of check-in time, so we loaded back up in the cars and drove the last few miles to Camp Redcloud.  We were all glad to get unloaded, see our room, and head to dinner. 

As I was looking at the photos from the drive, I looked at this one:

And the San Juan Mountains in the background reminded me of a particular movie.  I asked Jerry, but he didn't see it.  Do you? 

Nah?  Okay,  I guess it's just me.