If you ask Elsa, she would tell you that her parents are crazy and there are days we don’t disagree with her. We have discovered she is smarter than we are, she somehow knows the day before we travel even though we try to never do things the same way. Each morning we travel, we load her into the truck, she walks back and forth in the back seat looking out either window and we listen to the morning meow show. When that’s over, she settles into her bed for a long kitty nap.

We packed her up one morning and headed towards New Mexico. We made it to Albuquerque to spend a few days with family and relax, and she got to meet new people. Albuquerque has so much to do and see, and we didn’t have time to do everything we wanted to. One thing that was on Lee’s bucket list was the National Museum of Nuclear & Science History, which he loved and could spend an entire day at. One evening we went with family and we took the Albuquerque tram up the mountain side and had dinner at the restaurant at the top. The views were stunning and the company was great.

After saying good bye, we packed Elsa back up for a drive to Colorado Springs for a few days. We loved Colorado Springs and the beauty of the area. It is some place I think we could call home some day, but we still have so much to explore. One day we spent hiking at The Garden of The Gods, and if you have ever seen that, you would understand why we fell in love with the area. The best part of RV life is that you get to see so many fun little tourist stops. Colorado Springs is no exception and we spent another day touring the Ghost Town Wild West Museum. It was a fun little hole in the wall tourist trap. Elsa loved having a few rest days laying in her bed in the sunshine while we explored the area and she was not thrilled with us when we loaded her back into the truck to drive to Longmont CO.

After a long travel day (driving a 40 foot 5th wheel thru Denver makes for a long day), we arrived at our campground in Longmont, a few miles from Lara’s family. Elsa was thrilled when we told her that we would be there for 2 whole weeks! Although, she didn’t care for the 6 inches of snow and cold the 1st day we were there. The 80 degrees and sunshine on the 2nd day was more to her liking. We spent some time visiting family and friends, and Elsa got to meet a lot more new people. We checked off another item checked on our bucket list which was hiking in the Rocky Mountain National Park and a Passport cancellation stamp for our National Parks Book. After lots of great food, laughs and catching up it was time to head out , Elsa got a little snarky when we loaded her back into the truck for another drive day.

As we were preparing to leave another snow storm was heading our way, so we had our first major pivot day and decided to head south for a bit to avoid it before we headed west into the Rockies. We stopped overnight at a Love’s RV Travel stop and the next day drove over the Rockies, crossing over Monarch Pass at almost 12,000 feet. At the top we saw some snow flurries and a turned over Amazon semi truck. Coming down that pass we were extremely happy to have the truck we have and an exhaust brake and everyone breathed a sigh of relief when we got to the bottom. A few more miles and we made it to our next campground, Blue Mesa of the Gunnison. Imagine how excited Elsa was when we told her that we were spending 3 weeks in that mountain campground! There were chipmunks everywhere! It was the best Kitty TV station she’d had since we started this adventure. She watched her entertainment while her parents explored the area. We met up with some friends we had made in AZ and made some new friends, from Austin, TX. There was a couple great dinners and happy hours involved a few nights. Of course, we had to find some great hiking while camped in the Rockies. We checked out Black Canyon of the Gunnison National park, it was stunning and not a much visited National park. As we hiked thru the park we hiked thru the remains of the huge wildfire they had last year we got to see Mother Earth healing herself. Another great hike was the Dillon Pinnacles that was a 4 mile hike with incredible views at the top. We also spent some time in the little towns of Gunnison, Crested Butte and Ouray. All beautiful mountain towns with fun shops, restaurants and amazing scenery. Elsa was enjoying her sunshine and chipmunk TV until we loaded her back up in the truck and played a very dirty trick and took her to the V-E-T. She had been pulling some hair our and scratching at her hindquarters and we wanted to rule out anything serious. The vet told us she thinks it is some anxiety that is causing her to over groom and sent us home with lots of Feliway which we now spray everywhere before we travel. A few more days of chipmunk TV and we loaded her back up in the truck with another snarky meow to head west to Utah to visit a long time friend.

Thru all of this, at the end of each day, our little rescue kitty crawls in our laps and gives us lots of purrs and kitty biscuits.