Coming home

I guess the String Cheese concert at Red Rocks was kind of the Grand Finale for the trip. It's been downhill - literally and figuratively, since. I went to Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. That was a very nice park to walk around. While I was in the area driving east on Colorado 24, I saw a car that had been crushed by a boulder. According to the news that night, no one was hurt, as the boulder landed on the trunk. I had been driving in that lane going the other way about a half hour earlier. The southern part of Colorado along I25 was a very pretty drive - there were grasslands on the left and the Spanish Peaks (purple montain majesty, above the fruited plain?) on the right. I chose the I25 south route because it was fast and went right through Santa Fe - one of my favorite cities. I spent another two days there, and had two more meals at Santa Luna off of Don Gaspar. That is a fantastic restaurant. Highly recommend Chile en Nogada - chile pepper in cheese stuffed with meet and pomegranite seeds. It's hot, spicy, sweet, and creamy. The owner of the restaurant remembered me from when I ate there in June. By this time Santa Fe had started up their every night concert series in the plaza. I enjoyed a reggae band there, and I had coffee a couple more times at Counter Culture. One lady asked me why I decided to stop in Santa Fe. Why wouldn't you? It's got three cultures, art, music, pueblo architecture, awesome food, the oldest house in the country, mountains, desert, reasonable prices, and pretty cool people. I'm going back. the drive home actually seems to have gone faster than driving out. I spent the night in Asheville on the way home and mealed at The Laughing Seed a couple of times. The worst traffic on this entire trip was either in San Francisco or western North Carolina. If anyone with any power is reading this, it is time to make I40 from Morganton to Winston Salem into a three lane highway. My camera is done, so I have no new pictures. People have asked me what I liked best on this trip. Can I narrow it down to five or six things? I really felt at home in Santa Fe. Sedona made me feel really peaceful. Zion and Taos were truly beautiful. The Pacific coast had beautiful weather and was filled with nice people. Las Vegas was a lot of fun. Yellowstone was unbelievable with all of the animals. I am pretty sure that there is more country to explore, so I am probably going to do this again next year. I'm probably going to hit up a lot of my favorites - particularly in California. For the record, I estimated ten thousand miles, and the total came to 11542 miles, from June 11 until August 1, 2010.