Titletown The Holy Grail of NFL Stadiums

I know it sacrileges to go into the enemies camp but going to Lambeau Field has always been on my bucket list. It was awesome to learn about Curly Lambeau the founder of the Acme Packers in 1919, Vincent Thomas Lombardi the greatest coach of all time. It is truly a beautiful and modern stadium and they have a huge Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame. For being a very small TV market they rank 4th in revenue for the NFL through all of the side events (Conferences, Tours of the stadium, hall of fame etc.) The Packers are owned by the ticket holders and a few people who own public stock in the team. They are not owned by filthy rich people but by the people that attend the games. They just added 6700 seats for a total of around 82,500. Will be the 3rd largest stadium in the NFL. Amazing considering there are only 108,000 people in the Green Bay area. Oh ya every home game has been sold out SINCE 1960!!!! There is a lot of history and mystique behind this stadium. So glad I was privy enough to take the tour.  Pics to the right.

North Platte River Archway

We were told by my brother about this Museum that was built across I-80 just west of Kearney Nebraska. When we pulled off of the freeway it was pouring down rain , lightning and thunder so we thought this would be a good break to wait for the weather to pass. This place is huge and documents all of the different trails that merged here in Kearny NE before heading west for the California gold rush. It also documents the early days of highways like the great Lincoln Highway (highway 30) similar to route 66. Enjoy the pics on the right hand side.

Back on the Road Phase II 2013

Well we're back on the road again. We stopped for 4 days at Cheyenne Mountain State park above Colorado Springs and Fort Carson. Awesome State Park we were Approx. 800-1000 feet above Colorado Springs with a 180 degree view. Awesome to watch the sunset and the lights come on in the Valley. Took a day trip up to Woodland Park, CO. about 9800 feet. Wanted to go see the wolf preserve but unfortunately it was closed on Mondays.
We then went and spent a week and a half with Peggy's Daughter Michelle and family.
I put the trailer in storage and we stayed in their beautiful home in Parker, CO just SE of Denver proper.

Our Grandson graduated from High School so we attended his ceremony. Kind of weird that it was at 8:00am on a weekday.





I got 5 rounds of golf in at their private Country Club Pradera. Beautiful course!! Peggy got in 2 rounds.
We left their place yesterday Tue the 28th on phase II of our 2013 summer journey. Will update as we move on.

Palo Duro State Park - TX

Palo Duro State Park is south of Amarillo TX in the northwest section of Texas.  It has been called the Grand Canyon of Texas.  We thought it would be a good place to stay for a few days before we made our way up to Parker CO. 

It was hard to imagine exactly what this area would look like, but suddenly there was this deep canyon right in front of us...

"Palo Duro Canyon is approximately 120 miles long and 600 to                         

  800 feet deep and is the second largest canyon in the United

States. The canyon was formed less than 1 million years ago

when the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River first carved its

way through the Southern High Plains. The rocks expose a geologic

story which began approximately 250 million years ago,

layer by layer revealing a panoramic view of magnificent color.

The canyon’s archeological and ethnological treasures suggest

about twelve thousand years of human habitation, rising and

waning as climate varied among periods of abundant moisture,

aridity, and sometimes fearfully severe drought."

 Courtesy Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum

...Driving a steep, curvy road takes you right down to the floor of the canyon.  This is a beautiful, well-maintained state park.  According to one of the volunteers the revenue from this park supports 3-4 others parks in Texas.  There are many small clusters of campgrounds and RV sites.  Hiking trails are everywhere and well-marked.  There are several geocaches hidden within the park.   While searching for a geocache, we hiked a wonderful trail that followed the top of a ridge...the views were spectacular.  Wild turkeys and friendly deer entertained us at our campsite.

The visitor center has beautiful displays and interesting videos on the history of the area.  The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was key in building the roads and structures in the park.  There are wonderful photos from this era.

Holy Bats, Man there's a huge hole in the earth!!

Carlsbad Caverns

While we were staying at Brantley State park we decided we'd do a day trip to Carlsbad Caverns. So glad we did, this was an awesome experience. Mother nature is so cool she really knows how to make people go ooh and aaah. Went into the visitor center and rented a hand held audio tour wand for $5.00. There are stops along the self guided tour where you can listen to facts and stories about the caverns.
There are several different caverns to go into. We chose to do the easy 1 mile 1 1/2 hour self guided tour of the Big Room. We actually took 3 1/2 hours to do the walk, only because I was in such wonderment of the beauty of this place.
I believe I took close to 400 pictures in the caverns most without a flash. I've paired it down to about 174. (You can see them off to the right of the blog.)
We descended 780 feet by elevator into the entrance of the Big room. We walked about 100 feet into the actual entrance to this 8 1/2 acre room.
All I can say is WOW!!! I'll let the pictures do the talking although they really don't do the caverns any justice.

Smokey the Bear - Capitan NM

Another interesting place along the Billy the Kid Scenic Byway is Capitan NM - it is the birthplace and burial site of Smokey the Bear.  The Visitor Center in Capitan has an excellent display of photos and newspaper articles along with the posters from the advertising campaign "Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires.  This campaign started in 1944 before there was a real bear to represent Smokey. 

A 2 month old bear cub was found clinging to a tree after a fire in Capitan Gap.  Firefighters rescued him and originally named him "Hotfoot Teddy" since his feet were burned.  During his recovery he was kept at the home of one of the rangers.  They flew him to Washington DC and the rest is history...the campaign grew so great after a real bear was included the post office gave Smokey his zip code since he received so much mail.  Smokey spent the rest of his life in the National Zoo.

A study was made of school children - both US and foreign - on familiar slogans revealed that given the motto "Only You" more children were able to complete "Can Prevent Forest Fires" than any other motto. 

Smokey offically "retired" in 1975 at the age of 25 (70 in human years and the retirement age of Public Service employees :).  He died at age 26.  His remains were finally buried secretly in the village of Capitan at the visitor center.

Here is a link to the Visitor Center Smokey the Bear Visitor Center .

There is a lot that I didn't include here.  There is a great brochure that contains the "True Story".  We spent a lot time there and we really enjoyed it.

Billy the Kid Scenic Byway - Ruidoso NM

The Billy the Kid Scenic Byway is a loop of about 50 miles in Lincoln Co. New Mexico.  There is a visitor center in Ruidoso.  We like to make a visitor center one of our first stops before we start see the sights in an area.  Frequently, our timing is off and the visitor centers are closed.  We left so early in the morning to do this loop we didn't have a lot information on what to see and where to stop.  We missed a few interesting things, but it was still interesting.  We stopped at the visitor center at the end of our day and it was very nice.  We loved the mosaic design on the outside.

The drive itself is through hills and mountains (up to 12,000 ft Sierra Blanca) with a lot of trees.  We didn't see a lot of Billy the Kid references along the way.  Lincoln is on the National Register of Historic Places.  We opted not pay $8 each to go in the museum and there was very little else to see there.

We did take the 10 mile detour off the byway to visit Fort Stanton.  There is a pretty cool museum there (it's free:).  There were lots of old photos of the fort and the people - I love to look at old photos.  After it was decommissioned as a military fort, Fort Stanton became a US Merchant Marine hospital for tuverculosis patients.  It was worth the side trip, it's a very pleasant place to visit.  We also found a geocache while we were there.