Had breakfast at the motel and hit the road at 7:30 AM (MDT) heading for Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site. Got there at 7:50 and it didn't open until 9. Had planned to stop here because we'd already stopped at Bent's house in Taos. Here's our long-distance picture, last one of the trip:

Bent's Old Fort - see the Santa Fe wagon in the background?

We pressed on: US-50 east to US-287, US-287 to CO-96, where we looked for the turn-off to the Sand Creek Massacre site. It was unmarked, so we missed it. CO-96 became KS-96 all the way to Great Bend. By that time we were quite hungry and hadn't seen a worthy cafe, so we stopped at Pizza Hut again. Our plans had been to stop at Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Chase County, but we got there a bit after 5 PM, and it was closed. We continued on US-56 to KS-68; at Ottawa we decided to pick up I-35 as it was late enough to miss the rush hour traffic around Kansas City. Breezed through KC on I-435/470/US-50 and got home (hooray!) at 8:37 PM.

Total miles for day: 633. Total miles for return trip: 1825
Time from La Junta to Warrensburg: 12:07. Total road & sightseeing time, return trip: 49:55