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From Oakley we continued on I-70 West toward Green River, Utah. We climbed slowly from the Kansas plains to the foothills of the Colorado Rockies in a matter of hours. The terrain as we climbed changed from a flat, boring unchanging scene to breath-taking views and dizzying heights. We had lunch while sitting in the car admiring the dusting of snow that had fallen the night before. After a quick lunch of sandwiches, we stopped off to visit Buffalo Bill's grave, all the while wondering, "Didn't he die in Deadwood, S.D.???"William F. Cody, a.k.a. "Buffalo Bill" asked his wife and son to bury him on top of the mountain in Denver.Of course we thought it was kind of strange that they would transport his body all the way from Deadwood, S.D. to Denver, Colorado. Anyway, after we had checked out his grave, we took pictures of the beautiful mountains all around us. As we drove away, we were still thinking how peculiar it was that he would want to be buried in Denver, when we thought he wasn't even from Denver. About halfway up the Rockies, there was a swift realization that we had gotten Buffalo Bill mixed up with Wild Bill Hickok! He's the one who was killed in Deadwood… Oh, how embarrassing!
The highest point of the day, literally, was at Eisenhower Tunnel at 11,158 feet. As we zipped along, occasionally we would see Doll sheep grazing dangerously close to the highway. Shiny, my Prius, kept plugging along over hill and dale, but she was cranky at the high altitude. We continued on I-70 West to the skiing meccas of Vail, and Aspen Colorado. It was amazing to see all of the condos while driving through the on-again, off-again snow showers. Then the road narrowed, and we squeezed into Glen Canyon, surrounded by towering walls of rock. Up and down the summits we went, and then we crossed into Utah, where there was literally nothing for the first one hundred miles, not even a gas station. We got to Green River Utah about 5:30 p.m., another 650-mile or so day under our belts.
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