Lightening Strikes, Pikes Peak, and the Hometown of Mark Twain....

We stayed in Laramie because there was a social event called Frontier Days in Cheyenne.  Everything was booked up from Laramie to Denver.  We got two of the last three rooms in Laramie.  Then in the morning, we rode to Colorado Springs then to Pike’s Peak. 
History Lesson:  Pike’s Peak was originally called "El Capitan" by Spanish settlers; the mountain was renamed Pike's Peak after Zebulon Pike Jr., an explorer who led an expedition to the southern Colorado area in 1806.  At 14,115 feet, it is one of Colorado's 54 fourteeners (mountains that rise more than 14,000 feet above mean sea level) and is a designated National Historic Landmark.
Janet didn’t want to go up to Pike’s Peak because she all ready had a bad headache, and she thought going up there might make it worse.  She was probably right.  Conditions at the top are typical of a high alpine environment.  The thin air contains only 60% of the oxygen available at sea level.  The Aussie,  Ed, and I walked around up there for a little tiny bit and I felt like I was going to pass out a couple times.  The EMT’s up there were also in charge of the gift shop.  So if you had any kind of health problem, you could see any one of the cashiers / EMT’s.  (Only in America…)
 We experienced lightening much of the way up the peak and had to put our bike antennas down.  We also had a really good thunderstorm up at the summit and the people in charge at the summit told us not to go out of the building.  Many lightening strikes hit the summit often and we just didn’t want to be “lit up.”  So we were stuck up at Pike’s Peak for a while until things settled down.  The temperature at the summit was about 46 degrees. The weather was much cooler up top than down below where Janet was waiting for us for three hours.

Bill "Crocodile Dundee", Mare & Ed

Ed and I thought traveling up Pike’s Peak would be like going up Mt. Washington, in New Hampshire, but a longer ride.  Mt. Washington’s elevation is 6,288 ft and when we went up Mt. Washington, we never felt any kind of lightheadedness.  With Pike’s Peak, you start out in Colorado Springs at an elevation of 6,035 feet and just keep going up and up and up.  I kept looking up this mountain and telling Ed that we still had a very long way to go.   Pike’s Peak Highway is a 19 mile road that starts a few miles up Ute Pass at Cascade. It took us about one hour to get up to the Peak.  It is definitely not for the faint of heart.  There are hardly any guardrails at all on this road.  It was very exciting, scary, fun, and just plain adventurous.  Crocodile Dundee went in his jeep and I think he loved every frightening minute of this adventure.  You just have to experience it to “get the picture.” 
We stayed in Colby, Kansas Wednesday night.  It was a good drive from Pike’s Peak to Colby – about 250 miles and we arrived at the motel very late.  Last night, almost the whole way from Pike’s Peak to Colby, we had an incredible lightening show.  The weather was about 88 degrees, no rain, and the cloud to cloud lightening was fun to watch.  I was starting to change my mind about how much I hate Kansas weather until the next day.  It was 104 degrees all darn day today.  This really isn’t like 104 degrees in the desert.  It is actually hard to breathe with the humidity.  When it finally got down to 100 much later in the evening, I was extremely happy.  We are now in Hannibal, Missouri and the temperature is about 90 degrees at midnight.  You walk outside and instantly you can’t breathe with the humidity.  It is unreal!  Dundee and Jandora had a dinner date with some friends in St. Louis on Thursday, so it was time for us to part for the time being.  We will see them on Friday in St. Louis.  Hopefully it will rain the whole way to St. Louis and I will welcome every raindrop from Hannibal to St. Louis, if we are lucky.  Oh, Hannibal is the home of Mark Twain.  We are right on the Mississippi River.  Hopefully we will be able to do some site seeing, and then head on to St. Louis to have dinner with the Pfeil’s and their other friends.