July 11, 2006: Colorado & Kansas

We said goodbye to Mark and Kathy shortly after 7 this morning in order to make an 8 o'clock tour of the Denver Mint, which is marking its hundredth year of coin production. We watched the manufacture of "copper" pennies (made of zinc with a copper coating), "silver" coins (made of nickel, zinc, and copper alloys), and "gold" dollar coins (to which manganese is added for color). After blanks are punched out, coins larger than a penny go through a process of annealing, quenching, burnishing, rinsing, drying, stamping, and upsetting; upsetting gives coins a raised edge, makes them stackable, and slows wear and tear. Coins have a usable life in circulation of between 20 and 40 years, while paper money lasts less than two years on average.

The Denver and Philadelphia Mints are the only ones to make coins for circulation. At their current rate, each will produce nearly nine billion coins this year, 60 percent of these pennies. Because each penny costs 1.3 cents to make, one wonders when we will finally put a stop to this money-losing game and simply eliminate the disposable one-cent coin. (Two other facilities mint coins for collectors and investors: uncirculated and proof coins in San Francisco, and gold and platinum coins at West Point, New York. Paper money and postage stamps are made by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, DC, and Forth Worth, Texas.)

As you surely know, the mint is currently producing commemorative quarters for each state, but you may not know that they will begin making presidential dollar coins, one for each dead president, after they finish the quarter series. As our guide explained, living individuals cannot appear on US coins, bills, or stamps. Tommy immediately whispered to us, "That's good, because I don't think George Bush deserves to be on a coin." He has without a doubt picked up on our political leanings.

Driving south on the "Ronald Reagan Highway" into Colorado Springs, I saw a sign for the evangelical Focus on the Family Visitor Center, and curiosity compelled me to pay a call. The building is a good introduction to the slickness of the right-wing media empire Dr. James Dobson has built.

After I was welcomed and signed in, I was offered all of their numerous magazines (each with a corresponding website) in a hall full of displays on the various social and political tenets and missions of the church. Besides various galleries featuring framed portaits of the great man and his lieutenants, there is a big bookstore, a big empty theater continuously playing Dobson interviews, and a big crowded indoor theme park based on a long-running cartoon series called Odyssey, in which every problem has a Biblical solution. Because of his ability to mobilize acolytes, Dobson has become even more influential than Billy Graham was in his heyday. The license plates in the parking lot came from all over the central US, revealing the reach and clout of his ministry.

We also visited Colorado Springs' beautiful Garden of the Gods.

We walked among the eroded red rocks,

watched climbers tackle them,

and did a bit of climbing ourselves.






Yep, that's Tommy up there. He just loves to climb!






The rest of the day consisted of a very long drive (8 hours) on a very straight road (I-70) through very flat states (first Colorado and then Kansas, where we entered the Central Time Zone and set our clocks ahead one hour). Without a tornado to break the monotony, the boys might have been utterly bored, but they kept each other thoroughly occupied.

We're fortunate to have sons who have a close, amicable relationship. I don't recall having had such a fraternal relationship as a child, and I wish I could go back and change this somehow. But I comfort myself by observing how well our boys get along and entertain one another, and how much real affection they have for each other. Not that things don't devolve into the occasional spat under the stresses of boredom and confinement, and I suppose all bets will be off when they reach the teen years, but for the moment they are at a delightful age, constantly talking and playing together.

They're well-traveled boys, so they've had good training for this trip. Besides the Southwest, the Northeast, Florida, and Hawaii (Tommy twice), they've been to the Caribbean (Tommy twice), and Europe (Tommy twice). Three years ago, we drove around Europe together for nearly a month, visiting friends in Holland, Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany, and Switzerland, and touring France and the north of Italy. Tommy can even lay claim to having been to Alaska, although he was in his mother's womb at the time.

Cousin Mark got his law degree in Topeka, so he's made the trans-Kansas run many a time and knows it well. As we passed Salina, we recalled one of the less-flattering names he told us it has been given: "Saliva." Mark had suggested we might stop there for the night, but we chose to drive just a bit futher, to the historic town of Abilene, about which more tomorrow.