Colorado - Answering the Western Call

And so we approached the Continental Divide... slowly but surely.  Realizing that the part of Kansas that most people stereotype as the whole state is the part along the interstate 70.  It's a shame to judge a state only by its interstates; at least meet its inhabitants first.  Moving into Eastern Colorado we began to hit my favorite weather patterns again: tumultuous thunder-storms.  Pullmann drove admirably under some pretty windy and rainy conditions.  The lightning show that God put on was a good precursor to the Fourth of July, but the coolest part was that we could see the rain.  Allow me to explain.  From a distance, we could see exactly where the sheets of rain began.  Approaching it across the flat plains, it felt as if we were driving toward Niagara, then it felt as if we were driving THROUGH Niagara.  Then we caught sight of those colossal guardians of the West, the Rockies.  We drove up the spine into Fort Collins, where Monica Way had prepared for us a delicious feast of Middle Eastern food.  Grape leaves consumed and ice cream settling into the stomach, we explored Fort Collins, a lively (albeit slightly hippy/green-peace oriented) college town.  We sang and gathered a crowd as usual, and explored a couple different shops.  We met up with our fellow Hillsdale classmate, Lydia Melancon, and shared beer (local microbrews of course... Fat Tire and that family of beers) and great conversation back at the Way house.  

Now we had rid ourselves of the humidity, and even the heat had become more bearable as it dried out.  From Colorado we looked down the spine of the Rockies and headed straight for the Fire Swamp... also known as Albuquerque, NM.