Today we are starting a trip that will cover Colorado and Kansas both for business reasons (attend a conference and Denver) and exploratory (never been to Kansas). Denver is easily accesible by plane and after a long taxi ride we are soon at the conference hotel, Hotel Teatro in downtown Denver. The room is actually quite good with windows on two sides of the building allowing for some people watching while in the room.
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| Good size hotel room | Large bathroom |
In the morning before the conference we explore a bit the area and eat breakfast at Larimer square a seemingly popular area near the hotel for dining establishments. The one surprise versus Phoenix is that Denver's downtown area is quite popular with a lot of people and at least during the day it feels quite safe.
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| Larimer Square - our breakfast spot | Downtown Denver |
The whole downtown area is decorated with metal sculptures some of them more interesting than the others.
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| Metal sculptures are everywhere | Some try to be funny |
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| Some inspirational | And some scary:) |
The only touristy thing that we do in Denver is to visit the Money Museum in the Denver Federal Reserve Bank. It is under high security but after entering there are exhibits about the Fed and paper money and you can even take home small bags of shredded money - fun.
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| Visiting the Money Museum... | ...inside the Federal Reserve |
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| That is a lot of money - sadly shredded | No one can resist playing with money |
As we search for lunch and dinner in the two days we are in Denver we admire some more interesting buildings - the funniest is one with a huge pencil affixed to it - likely a reminder of other times.
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| Denver downtown | One of the old time high rises |
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| Interesting older building (with a huge pencil behind it) | Detail on downtown building |
Right next to the hotel is a small park that we enjoy for small walks and also a few quite modern buildings that we assume are the University.
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| Interesting modern building | Park near hotel |
Mostly for lunch and dinner we eat something quick except for one evening when we decide to go to an Indian restaurant which has good food even though it does not look that appetizing.
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| Indian food | Good but doesn't look appetizing |
Today we leave our hotel in Denver around lunch time and take a taxi to the airport where we will pick up our rental car for the vacation part of our trip. There are repairs going on and as such it takes a long time to get to the rental car counter and then the queue is quite long. Finally we are on our way - today is mostly a long day of driving with some small stops - the major ones are during the next days. We stop mostly to look at the fall colors - in Arizona given the lack of trees the fall colors are more difficult to see or notice.
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| Dirt road in Colorado | Fall is coming |
Another fun stop is at a rest area with the evening falling where we see huge swarms of birds doing intricate figures in the sky. It is mesmerizing and we follow them for some time before continuing our drive and arriving in our hotel in Great Bend. It is quite huge compared to what we expected with a conference room and a big pool - it just seems that it has seen better days the same as the whole city really. Today we are really tired so we eat from our provisions and go to bed soon.
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| Ominous evening | The birds are coming...HIDE! |
After a short breakfast we are ready to visit the area around Great Bend. The major reason that we chose Great Bend is that there are multiple large protected wetlands around it and especially Cheyenne Bottoms Refuge that we intend to visit. Cheyenne Bottoms is the largest inland wetland in the United States and a critical stopping point for birds on the Central Flyway that we hope to see. We start with the visitor center which is quite helpful and even allows us access to a few exhibit rooms that were booked for the day.
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| Visitor center | Not the only turkeys on our trip |
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| Huge snake | Find the animals |
After the visitor center we start the driving tour that they recommended and provided the pamphlet for and initially while the views of the marsh are quite nice we cannot see any birds which is a bit disappointing.
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| Brochure guiding us | Where are the birds? |
But at our first stop as soon as we exit the car multiple birds start flying - it is a similar flock of birds we have seen the previous day and today we can identify them - they are red winged blackbirds probably thousands of them.
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| So quiet | Not anymore...are they following us? |
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| What are they? | Blackbirds - still soooo many |
After this we start seeing birds everywhere including multiple species of ducks and even a turtle on a closed side road.
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| Quiet lake with ducks | Close up of ducks |
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| Red winged blackbird resting | Heron between the reeds |
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| Is that a rock on the ground? | No - it is a turtle |
The road passes through a few stands of trees that for us are special as they are already changing color and in Arizona that is a rare sight. We soon arrive at a large lake but again we miss the birds on it - quite weird.
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| Dirt road through the Preserve | There are fall colors here too |
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| Marshland | Huge lake - where are the birds? |
However there are a few smaller ponds afterwards that have quite a few birds to watch and enjoy as we start looping back towards the entrance.
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| Egret in the distance | Close up of egr |
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| Avocet in the distance | Close up of avocet |
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| Lake full of birds | Close up of birds |
There are relatively few cars on the road which makes for a peaceful outing with only the swarms of birds and the occasional blue heron sound breaking the silence.
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| Peaceful road | Blackbird swarms are everywhere |
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| Canada geese relaxing | Great blue heron above us |
Before leaving the area we also decide to try a short walking loop that takes us to a few bird blinds and over the marshlands but given that we don't see a lot of birds we decide to return to the car and continue on towards our next point of interest.
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| Bird blind on trail | Boardwalk trail |
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| Tree clump near trail | Eagles are everywhere |
The next point of interest where we want to stop is The Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays. We found out about it only when researching the area but it seemed a great fit with our interests. It has a big focus on fossils and even from the entrance we are surprised at how big it is given the location in the middle of nowhere.
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| Rural Kansas | Sternberg Museum of Natural History |
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| Not real - an exhibit | Inside the museum |
We are quite surprised also at the quality of the fossils and how well they are presented. The most well known fossil here is the fish inside a fish fossil - a fish eaten by another and then both fossilized but there are a lot of other fossils from pterodactyls to giant marine dinosaurs.
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| Sabertooth or related | Well known fish within a fish |
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| Nicely explained | So many fossils |
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| This is huge | Other type of fossils |
Of course the museum has other artifacts too including flourescent scenes and most surprinsing a shrunk head.
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| Fluorescent stones | Shrunk head - not what we expected:) |
In the middle of the circular museum is a recreated dinosaur habitat complete with sounds and dinosaurs (not real unfortunately) and extended over a couple levels so you can go to see both below and above water. Overall we enjoy the museum a lot and are glad that we stopped even though it was a bit expensive.
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| What is this area? | Ok...sounds ominous |
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| The velociraptors are coming! | You can also see the underwater fauna |
We spend the night in Colby and eat dinner at a steakhouse near the hotel - while the portions are huge the steaks are not as good as we hoped for but still they are filling and serve their purpose:).
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| Huge steak serving.. | ...unfortunately not that good |
Today is our last day of the trip and we have to drive back to Denver for our flight. However we are planning a detour through Nebraska to see the countryside a bit more instead of going straight on the interstate. This actually allows us to pass through a few small Kansas villages and see their historic buildings before continuing on north towards Nebraska.
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| Such a huge building in a small town | This is more expected |
After exiting the populated area the road passes near a riverine area with a lot of trees that show off the fall colors quite nicely and we enjoy stopping off a couple times to take photos of the many trees.
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| Cheyenne sacred area | Fall colors |
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| Kansas-Nebraska side road | Beautiful fall colors |
Soon however we are in the prairie with no trees around passing oil pumps and historic cemeteries that we investigate as we continue our way north.
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| This is an oilfield area | Civil War/Grand Army of the Republic veteran cemetery |
But then the creek reappears with the trees and we even see a couple turkeys carefully examining us from between the trees.
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| Beautiful creek | There is even a real turkey |
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| All trees are in fall colors | Not common in Arizona |
The area of course is quite agricultural and there are silos everywhere and lots and lots of bales of hay that are quite photogenically distributed on the fields.
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| Grain storage | Kansas landscape |
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| Bales of hay...sooo many | They are everywhere |
As we get closer to the border the terrain becomes rougher and we even see an arch near the road which is quite unexpected.
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| Creeks are always meandering in this area | Unusual arch |
Nebraska really is not that different from Kansas not that we expected it :). We stop to see the views for a couple times but then it is time for us to go faster to arrive in time at the airport. This is especially true because we want to leave us some time to return the car. We are happy we did so as it is as difficult and time consuming to get back to the terminal as it was to leave but we had enough time left and so we are soon safe on the flight back to Phoenix after our short jaunt into the area.
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| Nebraska landscape | Lots of shallow canyons |
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| Wild pumpkins? | Close up of one |
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