DragonFest

We left St. Louis at 10:15 and drove West on Highway 70. The sun rose behind us, then set in front of us; and still we drove. It sounds boring, but it wasn't. My brainy hubby brought along the laptop and a bunch of Babylon 5 DVD's. So, with L watching DVD's; we drove the 800+ miles with ease. Missouri went by in a flash. Kansas takes forever, but by the time we hit KC we were fully enrolled in listening to B5. We risked not stopping at Manhattan KS. And succesfully made it both ways without breaking down. Woot! I guess the money that JeffBee buried by the bridge did the trick (A whole other story)
About halfway through Kansas, we started seeing other travelers loaded with camping gear and heading West. I don't know that they were going to DragonFest, but who else goes camping on a Tuesday? Especially with bumper stickers that read "Goddess Bless America"?
I got the bright idea to write on a napkin, "D-Fest?" and on the flip side, "Us Too!" But before I could find a car to use it on, we got slammed with the mother of all thunderstorms. This mother had a pair of sisters, too. We were driving along watching cloud to cloud lightning in separate storms, one way off to the North, and one off to the South; when she sneaked up the middle and flattened us.
Yes, Kansas is so flat that you can actually see 3 storms at the same time.
We didn't pull over, Buck drove right through; which was amazing considering that we couldn't see squat. (What with the 18 wheelers throwing up mist, and the rain interspersed with pea sized hail, and Babylon 5 playing dramatic music in the background -gearing up for the Shadow War- Oh, yeah, it was something)

The rain ended (like it usually does) at the Colorado border. But by then the sun was gone, so I never got to use my little sign. We stopped at a little hole-in-the-wall gas station to change DVD's, and I took the opportunity to put on sweats. It was frickin' cold out there. A few people looked at us strangely, and I suppose we did look strange. Picture if you will: a man in tye-dye digging through the truck to find a box of B5 disks, a small boy in a bright blue cloak, and a shivering redhead rapidly pulling on layers over her shorts. I'm sure we were the talk of the town. :)
Nothing exciting happened during the rest of the drive. Well... Kosh was killed by Shadows, the Station became a shelter for renegade Earthforce ships, The Shadows attacked here, there, and everywhere... but I mean nothing outside of B5 happened.
We ate at Denny's in Denver, where no one looked at us strangely at all. Then we went up into the mountains. Now then... if you've never seen mountains before, here's a tip for you. First-timers should see mountains in daylight. They're beautiful and impressive, and they don't have a chance to sneak up on you.
They snuck up on L.
One minute he's engrossed in B5, the next minute there's a giant hunk of rock leaning over him. That would be the first little mountain past Red Rocks on highway 85. He didn't think it was very funny.