I’m finally getting around to getting some of the pictures that I took from our Road Trip to Colorado last weekend onto a post. I have no idea just exactly what I did with all my time these past days, but I decided I better get this done tonight.
Our Trip
So first things first. I wasn’t sure just exactly what I was going to bring along to wear because I’ve never been to Colorado before and had no clue what the weather was. So it was way past midnight on Thursday night when I was still rummaging around the house. I knew that 4:00 am was going to come pretty fast, but I also knew that there was no way that I was going to get it done in the morning. I got a wedding card made and I decided to wrap the gift with ‘pretty town paper’. 
I was debating if I should wrap it in some brown paper that I had at home and put a really pretty bow on it. Well I decided to go with the town paper and man oh man was I glad! When I saw how pretty some of the wedding gifts were at the wedding-I think the brown paper would have not fit in so well. Good decision on my part! So I finally got my stuff packed and I’m sure it was going to be way too many clothes – but at least it was done. The morning did come fast and it was 5:00 when my brother and sister in law pulled into the yard. I couldn’t believe how dark it was yet and I’m usually getting up at 5:30. Maybe my eye balls weren’t ready for the morning yet. So we were off. Once it started to get a little lighter outside and we were getting more into Nebraska, it seemed that every field had oil drilling machines in it. I snapped a quick picture of one that also had some oil storage.
We didn’t have to stop too many times to put gas in the car, but this one stop that we made we all just laughed! When someone in our group asked just where are we? It was like a sitcom because the answer was ‘No Where’.
Gas station in Nebraska
The weather started to get a little goofy and you could literally see rain come across the prairie.
Rain clouds out in the distance
But these clouds didn’t get over by us and I spent a lot of time just checking out all the trains that we saw along the way. A lot of them had coal in their cars and I wished that we would have kept track on just how many trains that we saw on our trip. It would have been a lot!
Trains and more trains hauling coal
We had decided to go to Ole’s Big Game Steakhouse in Paxton, Nebraska for dinner. Now I guess it’s a famous spot and the waitress said that they could serve around 400 for a dinner just in the middle of the week. There isn’t much in town and I really think the owner of this restaurant/bar could try out for that one commercial where this one guy said that he was the most interesting man in the world. Ole had gotten over 200 big game trophies displayed in this steakhouse and a lot of other stuff from his worldwide safari’s. See I told you he was really an interesting guy.
Inside Ole’s Steakhouse. This is just a small part of what was in there
Then we were on the road again. We were making pretty good time and I forgot that we’d loose an hour because of the time change. Seriously, yea for us!! We also noticed that there was a lot of irrigator systems in the fields. The land looked pretty dry and brown so I can see why they would need them.
Irrigation systems were all over both Nebraska and Wyoming
Finally as we were getting closer we could see the mountain range and we were within about a half hour from our hotel. 
We met up with our friends for the evening and was ready for the wedding the next afternoon. The weather was a little overcast and then it started to rain just as the wedding was over. Someone said that in Colorado it can be really nice for the morning and then it’ll rain in the afternoon, and to finish off the day it’ll be nice for the night. Maybe it has something to do with the mountains – not sure. But I do know that the wedding was really nice and very special to not only the bride and groom, but also our friends who were the brides parents. I think they never stopped smiling all day and night! After the wedding and dance we hit the hay because we knew that the next morning was going to come way too soon. I was right. But we did manage to check out of the hotel as early as 7:30 and headed East to go home. I snapped a quick picture of how the fields looked with cows in them. They just roam on the prairie and when you need them back at your ranch the cowboys go out and scout for your cattle. What a totally different way of farming than we do in our area.
Water break for the cattle
Cows just roam in the fields
Now the next stop that we did was really cool! We found our way to the Union Pacific’s Bailey Yard. Now I’m sure your’e thinking… what? But we read about it on the way out to Colorado and was lucky enough to have time to stop on the way back. It’s in North Platte, Nebraska and let me just tell you that it’s cool. We stopped at the Golden Spike Tower to get a good look at this train yard. The Guinness Book of World Records certifies Bailey Yard as the world’s largest railroad yard. There are more than 315 miles of tracks and can handle more than 150 trains a day or over 10,000 train cars. Since I really Love trains, this was a great stop for me. I mean not only is it some place that is really something to see, but it’s also in the Guinness Book of World Records. Double Score! So I obviously took quite a few pictures when we were there and check them out below:
I also added what you saw on the one side of the tower when you looked out. You saw all these trains and activities on the three sides and then just quiet farm land on the other.
Well we were almost home and I tried to get a good picture of the York water tower. You know when you’re looking for your camera and just can’t find it? Well I had a couple of cameras along and I still couldn’t snap the picture when I wanted. But I did include it in this posting because it’s definitely eye catching. 
I guess 15 years ago this water tower was supposed to be painted beige and blue but the people in town said they wanted something with a little bit more color. I’m thinking they succeeded. I laughed because when we are on our bike rides we always look for the towns water tower and once you see it you know that you’re close. Now sometimes the water towers are hard to see so I think that maybe there should be more colorful ones like this one around. It’s getting towards the end of our trip and we got one final bonus when we stopped for supper. We stopped in Mason City, Iowa and we just couldn’t figure out why they were having such awesome fireworks? Well it turned out that this town was hosting the National Pyrotechnics Guild International 2014 Convention starting that night and was going on for all week. It was too bad that we really needed to get home because it would have been something cool to sit down and watch more of. Maybe we can plan to go the next time they are in Mason City. Finally we pull into our driveway and are greeted with the 6 crazy kitties. William really helped us out again when we were gone taking care of the farm animals and kitties and we appreciated all his help. But it was time to get ready for a full week of work and it was hard to believe that that morning we were in Colorado. Crazy! But even though it was a long way to go to a wedding, it definitely was worth it in my books. Life’s too short to sit around and wait for the day to go by. Isn’t doing the unexpected sometimes what makes life interesting?
OK, so here is my photo not only of the day but also of the trip. Just too funny!! 