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Day 8: Tue Jul 29, 1997

Got things packed up in the morning. Valerie left for work fairly early, we talked to Bob for awhile until he also went to work. We finally got on our way, headed south on Broadway to the Army/Navy Surplus store and got a few more things useful on the trip. I got a couple Dry Boxes, solid plastic cases used by outdoor people to keep things dry. They helped organize some of the stuff like maps and guidebooks, and some of the food. We caught I-25 south toward Colorado Springs, but heard on the radio that flooding was causing delays near Castle Rock. I thought by the time we got there it might be cleared up but a tractor trailer jack-knife had traffic backed up for many miles and we got caught in it. There were no good parallel roads, and my maps, some very detailed, didn't show the upcoming exit, so we stayed on I-25 and moved very slowly south. A helicopter was seen flying back and forth every few minutes. A close look showed KOA on the side and if the web were accessible it would have been easy enough to find what radio station to tune in for traffic reports. But without web access I was forced to use the more primitive method of looking in the AAA guide. It was AM 840 out of Denver and it said the accident was cleared so traffic should get moving soon. Kept us from wandering off on an unmapped exit.

We got to Colorado Springs and checked our target, Motel 6. It was full. So we wandered around town, some motels didn't handle computer connections to the phone lines, others looked like too much of an adventure (we've had too many of those trying to save a few dollars). We finally checked Travel Inn at 512 South Nevada. It looked nice and was less than Motel 6. The room was very clean and neat and we were allowed to try the computer on the phone line. Zophia, an 8th grader, and her Red Setter, Dozer, showed us a room and I unpacked the laptop. At first it didn't work, but Zophia called and had the phone enabled for outside calls and then it worked very well, one of the fastest connections yet. As Sharleen played with Dozer (he even wanted to jump on the bed and wrestle) I showed Zophia the web and she was thinking of all the potential for school work. We took the room, moved in, and then went off to a salad bar at Western Sizzlin to eat.