Having Fun in Missouri

So it seem Missouri has lots of wineries as you can see below!:)  Who knew!  We are, of course, checking some of them out as well as Missouri brews and throwing in dashes of history;)

At the Riverwood Winery, we are shown an extensive list of Missouri wineries!

lots of rain here, adds beauty to the flowers

Pirtle Winery in the town of Weston is in a quaint old church building!

Also in Weston we visited O'Malleys Pub in the cellar where some of the beer is "piped" in from the nearby brewery!

Enjoyed some Irish tunes there!

We visited the Truman Presidential Library in Independence

a recreation of his oval office with some of his original furnishings

graves of Bess and Harry Truman in the courtyard

The Truman house

Monument Rocks National Monument, Kansas

On our way to Platte City, MO (our current stop) we stopped in Kansas to visit Monument Rocks NM.  We also checked out another pretty area, Smoky Valley Ranch. A couple of scenic spots not far from Oakley where we stayed.

The brochure put out by the Nature Conservancy indicated a well defined and well marked trail through the Smoky Valley Ranch.  However, we found that the brochure must have been printed when the trail was originally set up as there was no longer a defined trail and the posts we came across were long knocked down and trampled by cattle grazing in the area.  Very sad that it was not being kept up but we still had a good time wandering around:

this healthy looking coyote..........

had a stand off with the prairie dog!  The coyote backed down and walked away:) 

meadow larks were everywhere, I thought the bird below was a female meadow lark until I looked at it later, now I see it is not and I don't know what it is....any help?

Then we drove over to Monument Rocks, a very cool little area!  Covering just a few acres but so dramatic when surrounded by miles of very, very flat land!

Colorado Springs, CO, SNOW!

We are spending a week in the Colorado Springs area, Falcon, to be exact, in order to visit friends.  Gordon and Evelyn warned us that April was a very unstable, likely to snow, month.  We thought we would take the chance as it was the last few days of April and the first few of May.......

.....We will never plan a trip to see them again before mid May!;)

Whhaattt is all this white stuff??

Seriously????

Looking through our window down on the chairs I figured we would be using while here....not likely!

I do not own snow boots!  

We are on the right,  Crazy!

We have made it to Trinity Brewing Company:)

A drive near Garden of the Gods 

Went to a wine tasting in Manitou
one evening, no sign of Pikes
Peak:)

Back at Paradise, we did have
antelope walk by one morning!

Evelyn and I went for a walk today in their community. I had 4 layers on
and was fairly comfortable;)   Cold wind!