Up at 6 and heading to Colorado with our assortment of syrups.   We have 44,000 pounds of Diet Coke, Sprite, Coke zero, fruit punch, lemonade and mountain blast.   All we need now is some carbonated water and we are set!

I kept seeing these pretty black birds.  At first I thought they were just crows but they have a longer fancy tail and a really pretty song.  Not at all like a crow.  Looked it up and it is a great tailed grackle.

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Great-tailed_Grackle/id

I also keep seeing birds around all the overpasses and these little nests stuck up under there with little holes in them.   Looks like it is the cliff swallow.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_cliff_swallow

We may be getting a little goofy going through Texas.   We have turned on Willies Roadhouse on Sirius radio and listening to Marty Robbins, Dottie West, etc.   oh my!

Stopped at a rest area.   This is always a lovely sign to see.   Thankfully we didn’t see any.

Pictures in the rest area.

We made it to Trinidad, Colorado this evening before the time ran out.    What a trip it has been.   We went about 500 miles through Texas.   The Texas landscape changed every few miles.   We would be in trees and lush green grasses and then dry open areas and then rolling hills and then taller hills and buttes.    There were so many wildflowers along the highways in Texas too.   Thousands of yellow, pink, white and purple flowers.    At one point we went through a small dust cloud.   They had plowed up the land on both sides of the road for what looked like cotton and it was so dry that the wind was moving it across the road.   You can see how thick it was in the pictures below.

Then we crossed in to New Mexico – another new state!!   New Mexico was amazing.   The hills and mountains, landscape.  It was all so beautiful.   I took over 270 pictures today.  I had the hardest time trying to figure out which ones to put in the blog tonight.   Some of the mountains you see in New Mexico and the black rocks are all part of a volcanic chain through the area.   It is part of the Capulin Volcano National Park.    See link below.   Who’d have thought there were volcanoes in New Mexico!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capulin_Volcano_National_Monument

Then we got in to the lower part of Colorado and the  mountains through there were awesome as well.   We saw several pronghorn in several spots.    We saw 3 elk on the side of the road but I was so surprised to see them that I didn’t get a chance to get a picture.   They were so close to the road, just standing there eating.   Wow!

This has been one of the prettiest days on the trip.   We go through more of Colorado tomorrow.   I cant wait.   If you all cant find me at some point I will be in the mountains in Colorado.

For now, I am turning in.   Got to go 300 miles by 10 am.    Goodnight, y’all.

DG: Wind, wind, wind.  Good thing I was loaded, the truck that is, or we may have ended up on the side of the road, on our side.  I was quite literally steering into the wind to stay on the road.  Some rain, but nothing serious.  Not like last night in Dallas.  That was a storm.  We Texas panhandle is really beautiful.  This leads right into New Mexico, land of enchantment.  And it truly is.  Just looks spiritual, sky and land.

Tonight we are parked at a rest area facing some mountains.  Can’t wait to see them in the morning.  Tomorrow we go right up the east side of the Rockies and hope we can see Pike’s Peak from the highway.  Will let you know if that happened tomorrow.

Like the lady said, up early so we make Aurora by 10.  Good night and God bless.