Sue, The best area close to Colorado Springs is Cheyenne Mountain. It is 15 min. from the convention center as we sit at the base of the mountains. You will love the city during this time with all the old homes and their wonderful gardens. The link below is for 2007, but should give you a schedule for 2008 by early spring. There are a lot of wildflower hikes and driving options available. A search on wildflowers in Colorado Springs when you are near your trip date will give tons of info for finding them. Also books on wildflowers in the area and where to find them are available. June is not too early for wildflowers, they evolve from May throughout the summer. Different species, thickets, prairies will be seen depending upon the location and altitude. Just going on a drive through the mountain back country roads will present more wild flowers than expected. One I enjoy is driving the backroads to Cripple Creek. You would need about 4 hours to do this. Unique/unusual wildflowers are a mystery event. They can hide and take knowledge with a good eye to find them. Going on a walk/hike with a leader makes finding these a great experience. Many of these are scheduled by hiking clubs and garden groups througout the city. They will list them with the level of experience for the hike and time expected. Although we have many state and federal parks, they will not have as many wildflowers. Getting off the main highways is best and do not require backroad vehicles unless you plan on "climbing a mountain". Here is a second link which is a blog on wildflowers in the Colorado Springs area. It lists findings and trips by month. Again, last years, but they keep this up to date well. http://gazetteoutthere.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html There are a couple of members here from the Springs. Hopefully they will jump in too for a view of our city and more info on wildflowers. Tons to see around here. Here is a link that might be useful: Cheyenne Canyon Park schedule

haha...Annie...In 2010 I had never ridden further than 60 miles in a day. I took of with my trailer and rode with 2 friends from St Augustine to San Diego 3200 miles ! We avg 55 a day. Loved it so much that in 2011 a couple of us rode from Key West FL to Bar Harbor ME ...only 2800 miles !! Had a great time again. In 2012 only 2 of us and we started in Victoria BC...we rode up and over and down and when I was mid Saskatchewan BC I stopped as my DS 2 was ill and so was my cycling partner. Only did 1500 mi that ride. It is amazing what you learn about you and the country and the people on a bike ride. It is a life-changing adventure. Kelly...I sure do remember the hill country with great fondness. We rode almost exclusively on back roads. I loved the rivers and the "hills" which are pretty darn big ! And the fantastic food and people...and the amazing pecan trees ! All of it was fantastic ! I hope you do decide to take up camping . I camped a different place in Tx every night with my tent for 20 nights. It was amazing. c

My first DH and I starting camping when our son was about four. My husband bought a used van and we remodeled the inside and used it as our camper. Then we had to chance to buy a VW camper that had never been camped in so we bought it and sold the van. We used that for about a year. It had absolutely no power to climb mountains so we ended up selling it and started tent camping. When our son was nine, some friends that moved here from the NW talked us into sewing/building a teepee. That was quite an experience but the end result was some wonderful years of primitive camping, good times and great memories. After DH died, I passed the teepee along to our son and he still alternates between using it and tent camping. It's been 31 years since DH and I made it. I remarried and my current DH had one of the old VW campers when we married and we sold it a few years ago and bought a Class C motorhome with a slide. We've also got a two room tent that we keep on hand in case of family/friends over flow when we're camping. We've camped up to three months at a time. For the most part, I don't mind the cooking or camp clean up. Packing and unpacking is certainly not as tedious with the motorhome but the yearly maintenance & insurance can sure be a budget crunch. We keep threatening to sell it and go back to tent camping or a small travel trailer. I certainly don't see us giving up camping because we enjoy it too much to not do it. We've made a lot of great memories while camping and had some wonderful and awesome experiences that we may never have had otherwise. That's not to say that we don't enjoy trips and nice hotels because we do and most of those trips have been memorable in their own way. Thinking now...we may just be wanderers and adventurers at heart but we're the happiest with mother nature surrounding us.

Dear Kat_Wa: I am in agreement for the most part for the route that you have picked. The most unpredictable part is I-80 through Wyoming. This is an easy route when the roads are clear, and it is a main trucker's route between Chicago and the west coast. A major snowstorm can close this highway for several days. When a snowfall overwhelms Wyoming's plowing equipment, they close major highways. I-80 across Nebraska is flat and boring. If you pick up a stiff tail wind, you could coast all the way across. LOL. The remainder of the route from Lincoln, NE to Rio Grande, OH has no mountains or significat hills. major grades are caused by rolling landscape and dips into large river basins. You can handily avoid I-80 in the south side of Chicago and I advise you do so. I-80 south of Chicago and across the top Indiana is crowded with trucks and speeders. it can be a fast trip under good conditions, but can turn into a parking lot on short order. A jack-knifed truck 30 miles north of I-80 in Chicago can create a traffic backup that extends all the way back to the Illinois-Indiana border. The route that I would try is: 1. From Wasington State, take I-84 to Salt Lake City, UT. 2. At Salt Lake City, check the road conditions of I-80 through Wyoming. If open, ok, but if closed, either wait it out or find an alternate route across the Rockies. 3. I-80 east through Wyoming, Nebraska, and Iowa crossing the Mississippi River at Davenport/Bettendorf. 4. Immediately after crossing the Mississippi river, take I-74 south to Galesburg, IL. 5. I-74 turns east at Galesburg. Continue on I-74 to Indianapolis, IN. 6. Change to I-70 east at Indianapolis to Dayton, OH. 7. At Dayton, change to US-36 / I-36 and follow this to Rio Grande, OH. About 50% of this part is interstate. Get a detailed map of Dayton and plan a route either around or through Dayton whichever is your preference. Without a navigator at your side, the non-thinking and easiest route is to stay on I-70, then South on I-675 to US-35. This route is east of Dayton and totally avoids the city, but adds about a 5 mile backtrack. More about Wyoming: Wyoming is a high plains state with part of the the rocky mountains passing through it. The lowest elevation in the state is about 3600 ft at its SE corner. The last time I was along I-80 (several years ago) I found motels at Rock Srings and Cheyenne. When you first enter the state, you may see a set of huge gate arms beside the road akin to a railroad crossing. These are for closing the road. Its too bad this is not a pleasure trip. You are passing nearby a number of historical locations. Rock Island Arsenal, IL - site of a Civil War prison. There is a cemetery on the Island holding a large number of Confederate Soldiers. Many soldiers died at this camp from disease. Small pox ran rampant. Prisoners were taken upstream to a limestone quarry and there they cut stone used to construct some of the early permanent buildings at the arsenal. At my last count, some of these building were still standing and in use. Galesburg, IL - Home of Robert Frost. He was born in a garage sized house. Monmouth, IL - Birthplace of Wyatt Erp. Dixon, IL - Boyhood home of Nixon. Black Hawk War 1832 - Many sites and many of these forgotten. This war began in Northern IL, then into Wisconsin and westward through WI to the Mississippi river at the confluence of the Bad Axe river where the final masacre of Black Hawk's band occured. President Lincoln mania - Although Abe Lincoln was not born in Illinois, he grew up in Illinois and spent his early adulthood in IL, and was largely self taught. he was a 23 yr old store clerk when the Black Hawk war broke out. Lincoln was a Captain for 1 month in that war. He was elected Captain by winning a wrestling match. However, he voluntered for more terms serving in a position similar to assistant quartermaster. Vincennes, IN The site of Fort Sackville, the place where the French surrendered to a tired, rag tag group of US explorers. The leader of the group produced a sham to trick the French into surrendering. He knew that he had little chance of winning an outright battle and had to cross the Big Wabash River to engage the enemy. So waht did he do? at nightfall, he spread out his men into a number of groups, possibly as many as ten. There were only a few men per group, but the opponent did not know this. Each group kept a campfire buring all night giving an impression that an army was encamped on the river. Early, the next morning before his ruse could be discovered, he crossed the river under a white flag and demanded the French to surrender. The French's main object was fur trade, not make battle so they complied. After the surrender, the French leader asked to see a show of the troops hidden on the other side of the river, and when he saw how few it were, he became angry, but he was already under guard. Illinois and Indiana high schools are noted for basketball, not football. Dayton, OH - Wright Brothers. Parke County, IN - has 30 covered bridges. These are not as picturesque as those in Vermont and New Hampshire, but this is a lagre collection for one county. Ohio has covered bridges also. Battelle Memorial Institute at Columbus, OH. This institute helped to develop the Xerox process and accepted shares in the fledging company for payment. Nauvoo, IL - The site of an early Mormon town. They were attacked and then decided to leave. This was the beginning of their mass migration to Salt Lake City, UT. When they left their homes, some did a complete abandonment by leaving their houses unlocked and the front doors open. Because of this persucation, there are two Oregon trails in Nebraska: the main trail on the south side of the Platte River and the Mormon trail on the north side of the river. They took the less traveled side of the river to avoid fights and unpleasant encounters.