Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.

Malone and B-saurus at City Museum in St. Louis

Day 4 started out in Salina, KS where we had stopped for the evening.  The kids were up a little earlier than yesterday but it was still 9am before we were officially on the road.  During breakfast at the hotel, we provided much amusement (and disbelief) to the other guests as we discussed our travelling plans.

B-saurus has surprisingly turned out to be a great traveller.  She's been amusing herself in the back seat and only gets upset when Pat steals one of her night-nights (blankets).  She excitedly asks where we're headed next and apparently loves to sleep at hotels.  Malone, on the other hand, not so much.  She's decided that Mom is the only adult that will do to be near with.  As I write this post, she's asleep on the air mattress.  The original plan was for her and Pat to sleep on it tonight but he fell asleep watching Mythbusters in one of the beds with B-saurus.  Ga-Ga has offered to share the air mattress with her since Kakes wants to bed down with me.  I'm not sure at this point if we'll do that as Malone is prone to wake up upset that plans changed and that it's Ga-Ga next to her.

Back to today's recap...

I took the first shift driving and I have to say that the western section of Kansas is B-O-R-I-N-G to drive.  I kept it close to 80 mph most of the time so at least we traversed it at a good pace.  We stopped to get gas and were fairly close to a wind farm.

We were all obvious tourists as everyone but B had a camera out taking pictures.  We've driven past wind farms before on other trips but being close to one really impresses you with the sheer size of the windmills.

After 6+ hours total in Kansas, we finally crossed the border into Colorado and into the Mountain Time Zone.  Lunch was at a McDonald's, much to the kids delight, in Burlington, CO.  While we were eating, a man sitting next to us recommended visiting the antique carousel in town.  Since we had been making really good time, we decided to check it out..  Pat wasn't so enthused about this stop and kept asking if he could just stay in the minivan.  We forced convinced him to leave the van.

The Kit Carson Carousel was manufactured in 1905 and has been restored pretty close to it's original condition.  The paintings at the heart of the carousel are wonderful and the detail of the wooden animals that you ride on are amazing.  It only cost 25 cents to ride!  It travels at a good clip (12mph) and there aren't seat belts like the one the kids are accustomed to riding.  I ended up standing between Malone and B-saurus with a hand on each, just in case.  Pat grudgingly agreed to ride the carousel but balked when we went to visit the museum.  The kids weren't too interested in any of the displays but Ga-Ga and myself could have happily spent the afternoon there. 

I'm hoping that my mom got a few pictures of the paintings.

  Ga-Ga

Heading further into CO, I was surprised on how relatively flat it still was.  There were hills but not very big ones and certainly no mountains.  The weather was heavily overcast and we drove in and out of rain showers. 

This part of CO was filled with ranches of beef cattle and horses.  Malone made up a song about how she was going to marry a cow and a horse.  A little slap happy?  I think so.

With the gloomy weather, it was hard to get any clear shots of the terrain changing. 

Mountains starting to appear

We had originally planned to stop in Colorado Springs to spend the night.  But since it was still early (4:45pm) we pushed a little further so that we'd be closer to our excursion place for tomorrow morning.  We found a perfect hotel/motel for us and have decided to stay another night here so that we can do more than one activity tomorrow.  We found a yummy Mexican restaurant to eat at and were still back at the hotel with time for the kids to swim.  It's pretty chilly here, especially compared to the temps we experience this time of year at the beach.  It was 56 degrees F when the kids headed to the pool.  Lucky for them, it's indoors and heated!