While heading back to Kansas from New Mexico, the most direct route is through the panhandles of both Texas and Oklahoma. I have driven that a time or two in the past. However, I wanted to do something different this time. And, I noticed that there are some small national park sites in northeastern New Mexico and southeastern Colorado. So thought I might as well visit all of them while taking a new route home.

Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site - this was an impressive place. It made the frontier life in a fort seem bearable. The fort had shops for various skilled craftsmen and an apparent ample supply of supplies. The fort must have been well built because it is still fully intact (unless it was "restored" in more modern times).

Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site - I learned another lesson on this trip -- check the hours that places are open. When I arrived at this park, the posted sign said it is closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I was there on a Wednesday. Quite a ride between highway 96 and the park -- 20 miles of rough narrow gravel road. Pretty area but flat and desolate. Surprised the area is used for anything, and, in fact, there is very little human presence there. As I turned from one gravel county road onto another, a cow was reclined just off the side of the road on the weeds growing there. Apparently I startled the cow because it jumped up and moved away. Some minutes later I passed by what had to be the only farm house in the area. I startled a dog there. At first, he moved away from the road, but quickly he turned around and chased me for a moment. Dogs are dogs everywhere, it seems!

For the August trip, central Colorado (i.e. along I-70) was mostly as pass-thru. Did stay at a hotel in Parachute (interesting name for a town) which is just west of the town of Rifle (another interesting town name).

Eastern Colorado -- from Denver east -- is mostly a slanted flat area (the mountain views begin just west of the town of Arvada). I noticed sunflowers growing in the median of I-70 in eastern Colorado. Us Kansans notice such things!

The mountains of central Colorado are beautiful -- evergreen tree covered. Further west the mountains become more bare but get better after Rifle. The drive along I-70 through the green mountains is spectacular but between the heavy traffic, the usually winding up and down mountains and the continual CONSTRUCTION, much of the fun that the drive could be was taken away. I-70 also has a number of tunnels but all but one are really short.

What absolutely stunned me was the traffic in western Colorado heading east on I-70 at 5:00 am. I had to get west of Fruita before it let us. Probably at least 2,000 vehicles was in this line up whereas us westbound drivers were few and far between. My only guess is that all those eastbound drivers were heading to work in Denver --a two or three hour commute for these drivers.