Saturday, July 5, 2014

Ft. Collins to the Northern California Coast

My son graduated in 2010 with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing at a California state university campus in southern California. Within a year, his wife and he broke up and he was despondent and so went to visit a friend and his wife who lived in Ft. Collins, Colorado. After 3 months there studying for the NCLEX

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My wife and I thought it might be nice to take the Zephyr train

So, we boarded with a childhood friend of my wife's south of Berkeley, California for the trip to Denver. We had booked a room at the Brown Palace Hotel which is a historic hotel in the Denver area that we thought would be great fun to stay at too. My son was staying in Ft. Collins to the north of Denver and would come and pick me up so I could drive back to California with him. When he arrived in the morning to pick me up it was 16 degrees Fahrenheit and he got sort of cold walking from where he parked his car because it was only late October I believe that year.

I had taken the train to adapt to the cold and altitude better but in the process had only lost 1 night sleep on the train when I couldn't sleep on a moving train in our sleeper compartment with a bathroom and shower. I'm not sure I would travel by train during the summer because it might get sort of hot because I'm not sure about the air conditioning on a train (but I could be wrong).

We packed up his car and said good bye to his friends after being there 3 months studying and drove south as far as Pueblo, Colorado for the night. We had chosen Pueblo because I was having trouble sleeping at altitude and had had some difficulty even at Denver which is at 5000 feet in altitude. I think Pueblo was about 4500 feet or a little more whereas Colorado Springs is at 6000 feet which is even more difficult to breathe in until your body becomes accustomed to that high an altitude. I find being at 5000 feet or 6000 feet is fine during the daytime. It is sleeping at that high an altitude when I wake up with headaches from my body not getting enough oxygen. I first had a problem like this at age 17 when climbing Mt. San Gorgonio in southern California at 17. I slept at 10,000 feet and began throwing up during the night and had to carry my pack while throwing up down to about 8000 feet when I stopped throwing up from altitude sickness from sleeping at altitude. Though it didn't stop me from continuing to be a mountain climber it did stop me from sleeping at altitude pretty much.

I learned from that not to ever sleep at high altitudes. However, when I was trekking through the Himalayas I was there long enough to adjust to sleeping at 9000 feet in altitude when I spent a week there walking about 50 miles from 5000 feet to 10,000 feet in altitude through Helambu district of Nepal in 1986 for a week or more with my wife and older children who were then 10 to 14 years of age. So, I would say getting acclimatized to altitudes is important so you don't die like a friend of mine did when she flew into Lhasa, Tibet and died within 10 minutes of getting off the plane from the altitude there which is 12,000 feet or so.

So, Pueblo seemed like a good choice for me to spend the night, especially because the next day we were going to drive south through Taos, New Mexico which is 6,900 feet to Santa Fe, New Mexico to spend the night there at 7000 feet in altitude. Neither of us did well sleeping in Santa Fe and we both had headaches there. So, instead of spending a second night there we drove to Winslow, Arizona which has a famous train station converted into a hotel and restaurant with a lot of local art and stuff. Also, you can even ride the train and get off and stay there. So, we enjoyed the 4800 foot altitude of Winslow, Arizona on our way back towards California.

Also, you may want to visit the world's best preserved meteor impact site nearby:

Meteor Crater

www.meteorcrater.com/
Meteor Crater
Visit the world's best preserved meteorite impact site just minutes from Interstate 40 in Northern Arizona near Winslow. Meteor Crater is the breath-taking result of ...
‎Admission Prices - ‎Visitors Center - ‎Photo Gallery - ‎RV Park Overview
We walked through the site and visitors center and got our picture taken with some of it that is about the size of a table there in the visitors center for viewing there.
However, I wanted to share something about what my son and I experienced in Pueblo, Colorado.  We stayed at a tall hotel (maybe 7 or 8 stories) near the freeway south to New Mexico.

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 My son looked up on his smartphone a good restaurant to eat at there. When we got there it looked like this place would have been called old in the 1950s and I didn't feel very safe there. But, he talked me into it and it turned out to be the best food on the whole trip back. It was a very old Mexican restaurant and very well rated and it was a family run business. The mother and father were mostly the cooks and the son was very personable and in his mid 20s. He introduced us to his very pregnant wife who also was working there. He told us how they had honeymooned in San Francisco. Since I live near there on the coast we talked about that a lot. When we left I invited him to visit us in California if they were ever nearby. So, that was a really cool experience in the end.
Later that night I was asleep and woke up to find two beings in the room. This was a very alien kind of experience because these appeared to be two Kachinas that were about 25,000 or more years old. I could see through them sort of like ghosts so I knew they were local spirits of the Colorado plateau of Pueblo area. One of the spirits merged with my son who was asleep and the other one put his face inside my chest to look at my heart and organs. I think he sensed I was having some heart problems which hadn't been diagnosed yet. They both seemed to be ancient healers of this area. They made known to me that we both were important beings that they wanted to stay alive a long time. So, I was grateful for the help in staying alive longer from them both. So, it was sort of like ancient healers encouraging less ancient healers to stay alive a long time to help other beings.
By the time I got to Winslow, Arizona I was feeling a little relieved knowing the only other high altitudes I was going to have to experience was going to be Flagstaff and the rim of the Grand Canyon there in Arizona. My son had only been to the Grand Canyon once before with me a year or two previous because he had never been there before in his life. But, on that day the Canyon had been filled with clouds and it had been snowing. This time, "Thank God!" the canyon was visible and impressive and the day was warm but not hot but with a really beautiful view. The Grand Canyon can easily be over 100 degrees in the summer and it snows there in the winter too. So, depending upon the time of year be prepared for the weather there because it is pretty remote from any town except Flagstaff which is 78 miles away from Grand Canyon Village.
After we visited the Grand Canyon I was grateful to be heading home to the California coast and lower altitudes. It is about 3 1/2 hours of driving to Needles, California along the Colorado River. We spend the night in Needles in a motel there. I was extremely grateful not to have anymore altitude headaches from trying to sleep at higher altitudes. 
The next morning was warm so we went and waded in the Colorado River and I felt home to be back in California where I mostly grew up since 1952 when I was 4.
That day we drove West Across Interstate 40 to Interstate 15 and Barstow and then we drove up Highway 58 through Edwards Air Force Base to  Tehachapi and Bakersfield and then north on Interstate 5 towards the San Francisco Bay area. I was really grateful to be home and out of the higher altitudes which are really beautiful but it's hard to really enjoy them if you have a headache from sleeping at altitude.

Eventually, my son got a teaching job a long ways away (many hours by plane), got remarried and now has a son born in June this year. So, everything turned out okay for him even though his heart was broken by his ex-wife. But, as we all know life is like that so this isn't new. Life goes on. We all have to just find our way forward anyway we can.

Note: By the way if the altitude doesn't bother you in Santa Fe, New Mexico my favorite place to stay there ever since I was in a private school there in 1965 and 1966 is the La Fonda in downtown in the historic section of Santa Fe.

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Here are some more things I have written about this trip on the Zephyr to Colorado and driving back to California with my son through Denver, Pueblo, Taos, Santa Fe, Winslow, Flagstaff, Grand Canyon, Needles and the Colorado River and home to the northern California coast.
The Zephyr Train from California Eastward To Denver
Nov 16, 2011
I just took a shower aboard the California Zephyr Amtrak Train heading East. We boarded the Zephyr yesterday morning about 9 am,, on Sunday morning, yesterday In Emeryville near Berkeley and Oakland in California.
http://intuitivefred888.blogspot.com/
intuitive fred888: Oxygen: Not enough or too much
Nov 30, 2011
So, after riding the Zephyr for around 34 hours or more we arrived at over 5000 feet in Denver after riding in the train to altitudes over 9000 feet through Winter Park, Colorado then through a 6.2 mile long tunnel (about 10 ...
http://intuitivefred888.blogspot.com/
intuitive fred888: The Colorado River
Nov 22, 2011
But riding the Zephyr Train east I found it wonderful and amazing to follow the Colorado river for many many miles in Colorado up towards the Continental divide in the Rockies. I could imagine all the horses and men building ...
http://intuitivefred888.blogspot.com/
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