Colorado Rails 2022

As a tour with "Heart of the North Tours, Ramona & I coached to Colorado to ride differnet old trains that traversed mountain sides to reach a silver mine or wiggled its way to find another town following waterways to get there.

Click HERE for a discription of our trip.

Colorado Springs 20??
As a nice way to have some quality time with my oldest daughter Lisa, she and I took a rode trip to Colorado Springs to visit with, and send off her son Mike who was being deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in the following days.

Traveling along I-80 in Nebraska can be one really long boring drive. As our half way stopping point, we chose to book a room at a nice little, family run motel. Across the road, we discovered - Penny’s Diner. As we entered, we found it to be a fun eatery that took us right to the 1950’s. The American Cuisine featured here included old-fashioned malts from scratch, burgers and crispy fries. This was good old American food we appreciated after a long day on the road.

It’s nice to spend time getting special individual time with your children & grandchildren.

Estes Park 19??
Our three oldest children now out of the house and on their own, Mona and I gathered our two remaining, not yet adult children, boarded our trusty van and headed for the little tourist town of Estes Park, Colorado. On our journey we first stopped to view the four faces we had seen in hundreds of pictures but never faced directly, at Mt Rushmore in South Dakota.

Upon our arrival at our reserved motel in Estes Park, we soon realized we had made a rather poor choice as it was old, dirty and uncomfortable. We had pre-paid for the first night and it was too late to try and find other accommodations so we reluctantly stayed that night but went to work to find another motel to stay at for the remainder of our time there.
The next morning we moved to a wonderful place, then spent the day roaming the beautiful neighborhood. On our walk, I was surprised to run into an old Rotarian friend who had lived in Fairmont, the town we lived in at the time. He invited me to attend the weekly Rotary meeting later that week. Rotary meets at the famous Stanley Hotel, inventor of the Stanley Steamer Automobile. These meetings attract over two hundred Rotarians, most of whom are guest Rotarians from other parts of the country and around the world. It was quite an exiting experience and I could not have otherwise been able to visit the marvelous Stanley Hotel without being a guest there..

During that week we traveled to the Colorado River where we took an exiting ride down the rapids of the Colorado River in a large rubber raft. What a fun way to see this beautiful area.

Denver 197?
During the later 1970”s I spent a bit of time flying to Denver on business trips. I hated the times I was obliged to accommodate pompous managers of companies, who found it convenient to escape their families, and spend time into the late night hours to party and drink. Exhaused from the flight, I would rather just stay in my room and read a book but had little choice but to join them.

Nights I could be along, I usually dined at a nearby restaurant called “The Library”. I don’t recall anything about the food but I really enjoyed the décor. The place looked like a library. It had many book cases filled with books that could be read while there and checked out if I liked. Book cases served as dividers between tables as well. It felt very private and the service was great