Summer travel- OKC to Denver

[Mel]

have done it several times.. I prefer going through Amarillo.. you end up with a much more scenic drive than across Kansas.
its not much from here to Amarillo of course. .but once you get into NM and souther Colorado its nice. can hit garden of the gods as you go towards Denver as well.. beautiful.

Sounds like the way we always went. Just do your internet research and do a Griswold trip. That is if you are taking family.

[Filthy]

Just wanted to say thanks for everyones imput. Trip has been completed! I actually used a little bit of everyone's suggestions, and made the best trip possible!

After seeing some suggestions, to just drive straight thru...that's what we did. It wasn't bad at all. On departure we went straight West on I-40. We left the house about 5:45 AM...hoping the kids would continue sleeping for a few hours. As we approached the large wind turbine fields out West, I told my 4 year old, that there was a huge space ship buried under ground, and all of those turbine blades were the engines sticking up from the ground. This pretty much consumed his thoughts, for the remainder of the drive. By Elk City, they were both awake, and we stopped off for some breakfast. We rolled into Amarillo, around 10 AM or so, and I looked up the "Cadillac Ranch." We pulled off the highway, and spent probably 45 minutes to an hour, letting the kids graffiti the Cadillacs. It was under about a foot of water...but the kids took off their shoes..and enjoyed themselves. We stopped for food a few times on the way, but arrived to our destination in Westcliffe, CO around 6 PM. So, if we wouldn't have stopped several times..it would have been around 9 hours.

On the way back, we decided to take I-25 south out of Colorado, hit the northwest corner of New Mexico, and stopped off at the Capulin Volcano. We spent about an hour and a half, there at the volcano and the kids really enjoyed it. We then proceeded East, into Oklahoma via HWY 412. (NW Passage) Thru Boise City...stopped at a steakhouse for dinner in Guymon...onto Woodward, and then Kingfisher. This is really the only troubles we had. Once we got to Kingfisher, there was a bridge out on HWY 33 going East out of Kingfisher. We took some backroads to get out of Kingfisher...to get back onto 33. About 5 miles out of town..33, came to an abrupt stop. As in..there weren't any road signs, stating that the HWY was closed. And then all of the sudden, there were road blocks up..with no side exit streets to turn onto. So, I went around the barrier...only to find an another bridge out. My vehicle is AWD..SO, I pushed th elimits, but got to a point, where I could go no further. So, we turned around, and tried to take another side street. (Neither my phone GPS, nor the update Garmin unit I was utilizing recognized us even being on roads.) For almost 30 minutes, I was driving on dirt roads at 1 AM that quickly went from gravel..to dirt...to nothing more than an off road trail. It got to a point, where we were driving less than 25 mph, because of the condition of the "trail." It was actually somewhat concerning..as the kids and wife were kind of scared, Finally, we once again, found another dirt road...going in the "general" direction, that we needed to go, until we stumbled upon the town of Cashion. After that, we were good to go..as we traveled East until he hit HWY 74/Portland, and then South until we reached our East /West street in Edmond.


Either way, it was a fun 8 day trip! Thanks for all of the useful suggestions!

[Bellaboo]

Opps. You should have went straight south from Kingfisher on HWY 81, 8 miles to Okarche and then that puts you on Northwest Expressway.... Sounds like you had fun. Yes, the bridge on HWY 33 over Campbell Creek is being replaced plus other bridges on Campbell to the South were washed out by the spring rains..

[Filthy]

Opps. You should have went straight south from Kingfisher on HWY 81, 8 miles to Okarche and then that puts you on Northwest Expressway.... Sounds like you had fun. Yes, the bridge on HWY 33 over Campbell Creek is being replaced plus other bridges on Campbell to the South were washed out by the spring rains..

Yes, when I lived in NW OKC..that's typically the route we would have taken. (As, I grew up taking that to see my family in Enid) However, where I live, in north Edmond, my GPS told us that it would be 15 minutes shorter trip, to proceed on 33 East...and to hit 74 south. But alas..the GPS didn't know that 33 was currently under construction. At that point, we had already traveled so far East od Kingfisher on 33...that we figured it would be shorter to try an back road it...than to back track al the way back to kingfisher.

[Mel]

Sounds like you had a fun trip. Part of the Family Adventure is having at least one muck up on the road. Using hand maps and a compass was a fun way to navigate back when my boys were little. You get Griswold points for the side trips.

[Bellaboo]

sounds like you had a fun trip. Part of the family adventure is having at least one muck up on the road. Using hand maps and a compass was a fun way to navigate back when my boys were little. You get griswold points for the side trips.

^^^^ like ^^^^