It has been a while since our last entry. Certainly you were not expecting pictures from Nebraska or Iowa were you? The tour of the Winnebago plant in Forest City, Iowa was fascinating and worthwhile but photos were not allowed.
Today was Ella's 13th birthday and the last day of our 11 day visit with our daughter, Jennifer and her family in Madison, Wisconsin. What a great time although we woke up to 32 degree weather for three consecutive days. As Penny said, "at least it is better than the 110 degree temps in Phoenix... here I can at least put more cloths on."
We saw a couple of movies and several past clips from 30 Rock but we also had a great tour of the Horicon. The Horicon is a huge marsh in the center of Wisconsin and is a major stop of the migration highway of Canadian geese. Probably more than 100,000 geese stop here to fatten up for flights south. When they take flight it darkens the sky. Our only problem was that the migration season starts in mid-October. We did see a few thousand early arrival geese.


From the left, Matt, Ella, Jennifer and Matthew at the Horicon.

Fall is arriving













Ella, now a teenager, just opened a birthday gift. As of today, all of our grandchildren are teenagers.











Sadie, before grooming

After grooming. Notice the expression on her face. It seems to say, "What the hell did you do to me. It's cold here." We bought her a coat.

We are in Iowa near Des Moines today. Arrived here in two days from Colorado Springs. Tomorrow we will start a two day stay at the Winnebago factory in Forest City, Iowa where our motorhome was built. We will have some minor repairs made and also tour the plant.
We only had one day at Colorado Springs so decided to travel to the top of Pikes Peak. No, we didn't hike to the summit nor did we drive our underpowered car there. We boarded the cog train and rode it to the 14,110' summit. What a 9 mph blast! We may have made better time but the train had to slow for deer on the track and at another point for marmots on the track. This cog train has been in operation for more than 100 years. You'd figure that the deer and marmots would have figured this out by now.

Going up












At the summit. The train is powered by 4 400 hp Cummins diesel engines, two for going up and two for going down. Shucks, our motorhome has one of thoseCummins 400hp engines and so far we have travelled 7000 miles on this trip.









Yep. We made it to the summit too thanks in part to the oxygen boost canister in my pocket.












Above the tree line and approaching the summit. Notice the cog train track traversing the mountain.

The views and vistas from the train and the summit were awesome. This is one of them. You may notice the open pit mine in the upper left of center of the photo. This is an active gold mine and extracts $1,000,000 of gold daily. Do you think that there are open 365 days a year? Oh yea.

We haven't had very good modem strength so we are a little bit behind. While in Santa Fe, we ventured south on scenic Route 14 through the little quaint village of Madrid to the Sandia Mountains.
Madrid's claim to fame is that it was the set for a film with John Travolta about a group of amatuer motorcycle hogs. The film crew built a diner and the Kich Ass Ranch. Traveling on we drove to the 10,400' summit of the Sandia Mountain range which sits just north of Albuquerque.
Our last day in Santa Fe took us on a convoluted route to Taos but that is another story.

The Kick Ass ranch...not in it's finest hour.












Albuqueuque from 10.400'.  Spectacular, but I'll take the clear air of Punta Gorda thank you.












Locally they call this the steel ridge which sits just north of the summit. Just about all communications within 100 miles are channeled through these towers. Yep...I have 5 bars on my iPhone.

Some high flying humming birds











This is a part of the adobe village at Taos. We visited with a few Native Amewrican Indians here and really enjoyed and appreciated the dialogue.
We visited here 12 years ago and the place was pretty run down. Not now. There are 5 full time adobe pros who spend full time keeping the place up. Oh yes, they recently received a federal grant for this. Thats OK with me but why should I be surprised or disappointed to see that all of the Indians there were wearing Obama buttons?

This chapter shows some of the tamer side of Santa Fe.

A Santa Fe sidewalk giftshop. OK family members...now you know what you will be getting for Christmas.

This is that famous stairwell to the choir loft in a now defunct church. This stairwell has no visible means of support, no center column, no nails, no screws, no braces.

Oldest church in the United States.

The interior of the oldest church. Like many in Europe, both of these churches are now museums.










A U.S. mail coach exhibited in the Palace of Governors.

Santa Fe; the enchanting city in the Land of Enchantment. The call of the wild enticed us to take a three hour tour in a 4X4 out into the countryside. Our 4X4 was a retired Swiss Army vehicle with 8 shock absorbers and the choice of front wheel drive, rear wheel drive or 4 wheel drive. Take a look...

Stay in the truck!!

Yes, this was part of the road. It was a section after crossing a dry stream with a 1' drop and rise on the opposite side. That was no problem for this vehicle.

This was at the end of the road. The Rio Grande runs through the valley and the Los Alamos Labs are about 5 miles to the right.