Red Rocks Rain and Wha-hoo Wyoming!

What a rainy day we faced on Thursday...we decided to head to the Denver Mint (Jeff and son Bill are collectors) as an alternative to our planned kayak and bike day.  It was 37 degrees out and very rainy all day.  We went online first thing thinking, in May, that we would have lots of opportunities to get in on the 1 hour tour, but NO!   All tours were full through mid-July!   We nevertheless went to the gift shop and enjoyed it.  We rambled around town a bit and then headed to the Red Rock Amphitheater which we had definitely wanted to see.  The road up to the amphitheater was twisty and slow but we soon got to the entry to the parking lots and found a sentry--he told us there was a graduation scheduled where 963 students were going to go through their ceremonies at 2:30...what a beautiful spot to graduate, but what awful weather to do it in!  All  the parents, aunts, uncles, etc. were walking towards to amphitheater with umbrellas out, raincoats on, and a grim face to the weather!   Here's a picture of the entry to the parking lot of the Red Rock Amphitheater, close to the graduation site...

As we were traveling around Lakewood and the Colorado area, we noticed many, many 3-story houses...they grow big families  here!  As we head out of town after hating to leave our city park campsite, we pass the local "loaf-n-jug" and "Hobby Lobby"...heading out of town towards Cheyenne, WY.    We had great travels along 70, to 76 to 25 and stopped at Terry's Bison Ranch to have our homemade sandwiches in the moho.    We had thought about staying here in Cheyenne, but we were early and the weather was good, so we just motored on towards Douglas and then to Casper.  Along the way we passed sooo many snow fences, road signs repeatedly telling us via flashing lights, detours, etc that this road is often overcome by snowfall, wind and rain.  We passed the Budweiser brewery, which I would have loved to stop to see the Clydesdales, but we were in a hurry, since the rain and wind had certainly started to increase.   We saw many oil wells in fields we passed, and I couldn't help singing the Beverly Hillbillies theme song (Jed was shooting at some food... and up from the ground came a bubblin' crude....oil that is... black gold...) 

We saw lots of "doggies"...that's cattle to you "non cow-punchin"  folks...plus some bison and antelope.
After getting to our night spot, we headed into town and had an old-fashioned steak dinner in a new style  bistro...really good tenderloin plus organic GREAT salad.  We were right on the river (Platte) and after dinner went out to look at the level of the river (we're not comparing it to the Mississippi of course) but they had a full levee of sand bags around the restaurant and we were concerned that they may be flooded in the next day or two.  There was rain predicted for the next week here!  The waiter said that they were 200% over their rainfall for the year ....

We saw many gorgeous skies as we travelled along I-25...it was so beautiful we had to take a pix of the gorgeous skyline as we travelled along.....