Thursday, July 1

July 1, Thursday - Went to Royal Gorge and back by way of Phantom Canyon Road and Rampart Range Road. One way roads some of the time. Called Marv and told him we'd be back by Saturday noon.

July 2, Friday - Patty had car fixed and we finally got away from Colorado Springs about 1:30. Drove to Hays, ate supper (fried chicken) about 8 and went to bed at Fort Hays Motel at Hays.

July 3, Saturday - Left Hays about 8:30 and got into KC about 1:30. Stopped at both restaurants on the Turnpike but couldn't get waited on. Nice to get home. Sure had a nice trip.

Phantom Canyon Road and Rampart Range Roads are, even now, not for the faint of heart. We're in a 1962 Chevy convertible, and the road is rocky, steep in places, and very narrow in others. Mom was white-knuckling it all the way. 

Mom doesn't mention going up Pikes Peak on the bus, but it was a highlight of the trip. The bus drivers negotiate the hairpin turns and steep drop-offs as though they were headed to Whataburger for a sandwich. They seemed totally oblivious to the not-so-muffled screams of their oxygen-deprived passengers.

Mom learned a valuable science lesson that day, as well. Remember, mom is wearing an inflatable prosthetic bra because of her mastectomy. About two-thirds of the way up Pike's Peak, my aunt Patty pointed out to mom that her left side was twice its normal size. After the appropriate fit of sister-laughing, mom reached into her purse and got out the tube she used to inflate and adjust the bra. She reached inside her jacket, attached the tube, and started bleeding off the extra air, an action accompanied by a loud, whistling, hissing sound. 

The man in the seat on the opposite side of the aisle looked all over for the source of the sound. He saw my aunt Patty about to explode from the stifled laughter, and Patty looked right at the guy and said, "My sister is under a lot of pressure these days."

That set off another round of uncontrollable, gasping, red-faced laughter, and when we finally got to the summit, we were absolutely exhausted, as well as suffering from oxygen deprivation. We visited the summit house, bought a snow globe souvenir, had a donut and a cup of coffee, and went outside to wait, blue-lipped and woozy, for the cog railway for the trip back to the bottom of the mountain. I slept all the way down.

Not sure what was wrong with the car. It was a small-block Chevy in the summer, so it probably had to do with an overheated starter, but apparently, it was easily repaired, and back across Kansas we go.

Fort Hays Motel - Photo: Frank Brusca

Fort Hays Motel was pretty typical for Kansas crossings in those days. A long, connected strip of attached rooms in a row or sometimes in a horseshoe shape. Kinda like the Bates Motel. If those walls - and showers - could talk.

The Kansas Turnpike  - The KTA - was a marvel in the early days of the Interstate Highway experiment, but getting fed on the turnpike was an adventure, and usually a disappointment. Under the signature light-bulb-shaped water towers there was a gas station, and a restaurant. The gas station gigged you on the price of gas, and the restaurant had the worst service imaginable. I suppose it had a lot to do with their locations, and getting help out there was probably difficult. All the same, mom and my aunt Patty would have eagerly stopped at Junction City or Topeka if they had known how bad it would be on the 'Pike. Harvey House it wasn't.

Home again, with lusty tales of high adventure in the Rockies.