Day 2 - to Colorado Springs

Santa Fe to Colorado Springs, 342 miles (some small detours) and 26.4 mpg, 6 hours. We left at 11am, and got here at 5. Totals for the trip, 829 miles, 26.6 mpg. Those are the stats.

Boys got us up around 5am as usual. Funny, too, because we did ‘lose’ an hour, so it should have been 6am. I really think they can read the clock. We muddled around, made our own coffee (French press), walked the boys (several times). Discovered that Woody performs much better (shits quick) if he is alone – Jake nowhere around. Jake, on the other hand, has no problem.

We went back and forth on where to have breakfast, Teclote, a Mexican café in town, or at the La Quinta (included). We finally decided on La Quinta, and had muffins and cereal and juice and coffee (not good coffee). We futzed some more, walked boys some more. Called Mary Burnley and had a nice talk. Then called Alison. Used Skype for both. Finally got around to packing up, and got away from the motel around 11.


First thing we did was a driving tour of Santa Fe. There must be 300 galleries, and we drove by half of them. Didn’t stop, just enjoyed the architecture. Then we headed out, and my Molokai sense of direction returned – except this time I was actually right, and north was south! We got it right, and were on our way.

The trip was uneventful – we had a lot of distance to cover, and we were starting really late. So we pretty much just drove. We switched drivers often, as we now normally do, made a few stops to walk the boys. Around 2 we decided to look for food – didn’t want much, because we were anticipating a big dinner. Well, as it turns out, we couldn’t find anything, and ended up at a Subway – it was a quick, ‘healthy’, adequate sandwich that did the job.

We rolled in to the La Quinta at 5pm, ready to get off the road. After unloading the car – there were notices of vandalism posted recommending nothing be left in the vehicle – we contacted Katie. Turns out the messages we had left on her cell were moot because she doesn’t have cell service at the ranch. (I’ll have to mention to her that there is a number she can call on a landline to check her cell messages!) Mike was not feeling well, so our evening was postponed until Tuesday night.

We got the names of some potential restaurants, looked at menus on the web, and decided on The Phantom Canyon Brewing Company, downtown. Drove there, no problem. Left the boys in the car (it’s cool now), and went in for a wonderful meal. Another lucky choice. It’s a large place, seems to play regee all the time, and had a good crowd – very noisy. The food was great, the ambiance was great – nice meal. After that we drove back ‘home’ and crashed.

Tomorrow will be Pikes Peak, should be a lot of pictures.