Exploring the United States of America.
Most Americans have never been to all of the 50 states. America is too big and can take a lifetime to see every corner of the USA.


DENVER COLORADO:
I'll start with my home town and where i lived until summer 1964.
Denver, truly a Rockie Mountain High to quote the late John Denver.
Many childhood memories from Denver. Our family would go camping way up in the mountains outside the city limits in places like, Red Rocks, Central City, Black Hawk and Cripple Creek. My parents would sometimes allow a friend or two to come along, some of the neighbors didn't have cars so their parents couldn't leave the city. I remember my dad, dispite us not being rich, always had at least two cars. I thought we were the richest people in the neighborhood because we could always go to the lake swimming or camping.
Picnics and softball games with the many aunts, uncles and cousins of which i still have many living in Colorado and the numbers keep growing everyday were another way we spent summers.
For a few years we left Denver for a sleepy little town called Lafayette. After four years we moved to another colorful neighborhood in Denver across the river near the Denver Coliseum. When the circus or rodeo came to town we didn't worry about having money for expensive tickets to these shows because the folks that ran the shows would be glad to have us kids around to clean animal stalls and such for free entry passes! That was really cool. Nowadays got unions to protect kids from working for such things...wah! Whats a Circus ticket worth nowadays, $100,$200?

Another thing that just came to mind was 'cherry picking'! Yah, dad n mom would take us to a town called Morrison, west of Denver and we would pick cherries, half/half...half of the bushels would go to the orchard owner and the other half would come home with us, whatever us kids did not eat on the way home mom and dad packed/canned for our eating pleasure later! MMMMMM and they were yummy too. If it sounds fun to pick and can your own stuffs go here: Adobe Rose B n B

Denver, Nick named "Mile High City" becos of its elevation of some 5,280 ft. above sea level.

View of the Rockies from Denver HERE

AKA/Colorful Colorado not only for the beauty of its landscapes but also for its "Colorful People" ie;
1.Soapy Smith
2.Buffulo Bill
3.Doc Holiday
4.Louis Ballast

Famous Denver People
Charles Boettcher
Mayor Federico Peña
Clara Brown


More charactors from Denver!
HERE

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BREAK TIME: George Harrison

Yo La Tengo

SAN FRANCISCO:
We would leave Denver on a long jouney to California in 1964.

Redwood City, would be home from 1964 till 1980 (later home of my friend GOOGLE!).
Traveling along with sister and mom in our 1957 Ford 2dr coupe, first down Santa Fe Dr. out of Denver and onto, what is now I-25 then hwy 85 south. South to New mexico then Arizona and West to California!
What an adventure we would have, stopping at diners all along the way, cheese burgers in one place, chile bowls in another and Chinese food, the way we used to eat it! History of Chinese food in America. Listen
Mc Donalds had already been introduced to Denver and the world but what we were really looking for was LOTTA BURGER!


In those days no such thing as by-passing a town either, U drove thru every town ie; Colorado Springs, Pueblo, Trinadad in Colorado then to Raton, Las Vegas, Santa Fe and Albuquerque in New Mexico. It was really cool. Since the introduction to the by-passes many old towns either dried up or stagnated so badly that everybody would move out. Maybe someone would come and call it a "ghost town" and sell tickets to see it! Madrid,NM then and NOW .


So to get on with the trip West, stopping at any wide spot on the road to rest or anyplace that got a pinball machine for me to play...wooo hoooo!
There would also be 100 miles between some towns and some folks could be mighty proud and not wanna give us water for our thirsty old car. In retrospect, what would posses a woman to leave a nice comfortable life to go on such a perilis journey (would it be that the 2 kids begged and pleaded to go)with two young kids? I'm talking about the
Mojave Desert Journey! God is Good and God is Great! Not even a flat tire! Just water for the car, thats all.
I really don't remember where we slept until the last day of the trip. We woke up in the morning outside a little town called Redwood City so we had breakfast there and then we headed for San Francisco where we were actually headed. Mom had been living there in the "40's" until after the war. She had told us all about it and we wanted to live there until.....now i remember....i got a ticket for running a red lite! So I was driving after all. Somewhere on Market Street, I would get my first ticket of my driving career.


Downtown San Francisco


Row Houses


Golden Gate Bridge


We looked around SF for a few hours seeing the sights, fisherman's warf, ride on the trolly and check out the crooked street and hilly ones too. "We don't want to live here" I said to mom and we would go back to the town we had breakfast in to settle down and make a home for many years.

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