Good Morning Gentlemen,

The Nuts Family spent the past 7 days visiting [AK]Pops Murphy in Colorado Springs. As you recall, Pops and Ma are 90% retired and traveling the country side doing what we all wish we could... anything they like. Pops and Ma are currently at the AF Academy. Here are some photos of our trip from San Francisco to Colorado and back:


Outlaw Canyon, Eastern Colorado on Highway 70


Black Dragon Canyon, about 5 miles east of Outlaw Canyon


Pike's Peak. Well worth the drive up a dirt road to over 14,000 feet.


U.S. Air Force Academy Chapel


Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs

For those that travel in the west: Highway 50 (The Lonliest Road) is an intersting 2 lane highway that cuts across Utah and Nevada. Pops recommended it and we gave it a shot. Good but long drive. No services for hundreds of miles... very cool road. I want to do it again when I have more patience and Nut's Jr is older. There are a ton of ghost towns and dinosaur sites throughout Nevada.

Highway 70 from Colorado to Utah was very scenic with lots of good photo ops. Cool Mountains. (we talked with a girl that was driving across country with two prop skeletons in her front seat... taking photos along the way. We drove away quickly just in case they weren't props)

Highway 24 from Colorado Springs, through Aspen and up to Grand Junction was by far the pretiest drive. The Rockies still had snow on them and the drive up to the Continental Divide at 12k feet was great. Big beautifull log cabin homes in Aspen.

Highway 80 from San Fran to Cheyene was a bit dull. The Bonneville Salt Flats were cool but after a while the road gets tiring. Salt Lake City was very pretty... I wonder how it is the rest of the year? Anyone ever live there?

Things we learned: Fallon Nevada (the home to U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard bases despite being about 600 miles from water) is a crappy little town with a ton of mosquitoes. Yuck. The Denny's there is closed and there are no family sit down restaurants along Hwy 50 through town. We ended up at Sonic.

GPS + Laptop + MS Street and Trips 2005 made the trip a bit better. Being able to quickly locate hotels and services in little towns was nice as not every town as a nice hotel and with an 11month old you've got to plan your stops a bit better than when you're going alone or without kids. However satellite internet would have been awesome. Would have been sweet to Google little towns and sites as you blow by them at 90mph.

Skip the Royal Gorge Bridge in Canon City Colorado. It's a tourist trap. $20.00 per person to see a bridge. They constructed buildings all around it so you can't take any good photos unless you pay to get into the 'amusement park'. Of course on the way out, Pops spotted a little gap in the fence and we snapped a couple of photos.