December 2009 Part 2

The day after Christmas I fulfilled a yearly tradition of going to an El Monstero show at the beautiful Pageant Theater, St. Louis. Unfortunately, this video has pretty bad sound quality. The shows, as always, were excellent, IF you like Pink Floyd ;-)

L to R: Yo, Rod Hall, Jimmy McBrain, Scott Simpson

After the concert, I pointed my Subaru West for the long, boring drive across MO and KS.
12 hours later I was in the mountains!

Made a quick stop in Denver at the Whole Foods Market.
Their olive bar (pictured below) has over 40 kinds of olives. They also have at least 20 different kinds of soup, multiple salad bars and more hot food than most restaurants offer, and it's just a grocery store.

After I loaded up on health food, it was off to see if I could get "lost" in the mountains.
Which reminds me of a great quote that I subscribe to,
"Not all who wander are lost."

Rocky Mountain National Park
265,770 acres of wilderness, 359 miles of trails, 150 lakes, and over 60 named peaks that are all over 12K feet. Should be enough to keep me busy for a day, maybe two....

Chicken pot pie and bruschetta from Poppy's in Estes Park. Excellent.

Lots of wildlife in the middle of town

Squirrel or rabbit?

Thousands of elk, everywhere

Edleweiss.
Not sure if these are the same people that have the world wide motorcycle tours or not.

By the time the road gets this twisty and snow/ice covered, Subarus are about the only vehicle you see. They say that Subaru is the "State Car" of Colorado.Morrison, CO, near Red Rocks Amphitheater

10 miles from nowhere I spotted this SWEET customized Subaru GL.

When I saw this sign, I knew I was headed in the right direction.

After a long, somewhat dangerous climb, this was the view from (near) the top.

About 25' from the top, decided to stop here and not push my luck any more than I already had.

Two short days later I was headed home.
This is the view of the mountains from 100 miles away.

Drove through a nasty snow storm in Kansas. The State Police closed the Highway, but one of the troopers opened the entrance ramp and let me continue. My Subaru was the only vehicle on the road until 1am when I decided to stop and get some sleep.

When I got back home, Fayetteville was still snow covered.

Snow, symmetrical all-wheel drive and a 37 year old little boy yields this:

Subaru Outback Fun in the Snow - Arkansas Adventure All Wheel Drive from Justin Weiss on Vimeo.

Monday was a sad day for me. I had to say goodbye to my beloved 2008 Outback Limited. Lots of good times in that car. One final road trip (2500+ miles) and some 4-wheel drive doughnuts was a great way to say goodbye.


My consolation was replacing my 2008 Outback Limited with this
2010 Outback Limited.
Motor Trend's SUV of the Year.