Monday, August 6, 2012

Not in Oklahoma Yet!

We took two days to drive back to Oklahoma, stopping in New Mexico for our overnight stay. We were amused by the variety of signs we saw along the way.  First we saw this one:


which seemed a little unbelievable, given the rocky mountainous terrain surrounding the sign.  We could just imagine cows rolling down the hill. 


The next sign was not all that unfamiliar - after all, we do have deer in Oklahoma and Texas, and seeing them on the side of the road is not unusual.  We did, in fact, see a mule deer shortly after one of these signs. 

This sign we don't see much of around our neck of the woods.  The girls thought there should be an additional sign for just regular sheep, not bighorn sheep, since the only sheep we saw on the trip were the flock that were crossing the road on the way to the camp (they were not there on the way home.)


You might think we would see more of these signs around where we live, but I think most people stick to their pastures or park trails.  You just don't see many horse and riders (or accompanying signs) along our roadways. 


We do have one of these right at the entrance to our subdivision - only it has a crosswalk, and two figures, who are wearing backpacks.  It's a school crosswalk crossing.  Apparently the people in Colorado just walk across as they please. 


Elk, we don't see too much of in central Oklahoma.


And no bears, thank you very much!  We didn't see any bears while we were in Colorado, although we saw plenty of bear deterrents.  Dad and Terri saw a campground surrounded by cowbells on strings - a bear detection system - and all the trashcans were "bearproof".


As we left the campground we got our own distinctive sign on the back of the car - everyone did - written into the Colorado dust that was inevitable after a week at Redcloud.  Ours lasted until somewhere in southeast Colorado, where we stopped for gas and cleaned off the windows.  The cool weather also left us as we headed down the mountain.  As we left, it was raining a bit, and the thermometer on the rearview mirror was in the 50's.  As we descended the mountain we watched the temperature rise 60. . .70. . .80. . .90. . .100. . . Are we driving to hell?  I wondered.  So much for Colorado coolness! 



As we were traveling home we saw this train - looks like an old-timey steam engine, but we couldn't find any information about it on the map.  It was neat to see. 

A few days after we got home I met Jerry for lunch, and we saw a sign that looked like this:


Nope, we aren't in Colorado anymore.  This is a sure sign that we are back in suburbia!

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