Scenes of Yellowstone...belated

Yellowstone for three weeks was fabulous...except for the lack of internet....so I have not posted for a while..will catch up.....

A Squirrel In Our World

For two days I was mystified by a tapping sound on the roof of our RV. Then, I noticed this rubble on the ground.

I moved away from the RV, and way up high in tree branches right over our rig was one of those rats with bushy tails. He was wreaking havoc on the poor cottonwood, ripping off tender bark from new shoots and nibbling the inner layer. He tossed his garbage with no regard to green recycling. I chuckled to myself this morning as we broke camp and headed south to Colorado Springs. I must have been a sight for the first few miles as I showered cars behind with what must have been 50 or more pieces of this rejected bark that had fallen on the RV roof.

ride the rapids with me

Cherry Creek State Park

Colorado state parks that have RV camping could well be our #1 pick for best RV park experience yet. Colorado has spent quite a bit of cash on their parks. Emphasis is on a natural experience and space between neighbors abounds. These folks are good. They are not so good at regulating growth, however. The beleaguered city of Denver has boomed and continues to do so. There is far too much high density housing. Local news reports that 10,000 people per month are moving here. City fathers have blessed an overabundance of development and the infrastructure is bending at the seams. Water supply is a big issue looming in the near future and traffic is monumental. A local friend told me he recently drove back from Ft Collins, 70 miles north of Denver, bumper to bumper all the way, barely getting to 40mph at the “open” areas. While it is great for us that money has been spent on the parks and bike paths, (the town is way bike crazed), not much is going into the condition of the roadways. It is a jarring experience to drive the streets here. The whole state is hot. Colorado is certainly one of our country’s most wonderful places to live. It offers so much in terms of climate, including a very tolerable winter season for Denverites. Major ski areas are an hour away. You visit when the weather is nice and stay home for snow times. Storms here are regularly followed by incredibly blue; clear skies. Summers are filled with perfect temperature low humidity days. Colorado boasts the lowest rate of obesity in the US. Our friends that remain here are all in good shape. It is Slim City, and the folks of that mindset continue to pour into the state. The city's multi cultures are equanimous with each other much more so than many other places around the US. In the spotlight now, Colorado is home to the Olympic training camp. Fitness, fitness, fitness. So back to our RV site, here’s a few pics to give an idea of our surroundings. 

Our Site.

Field of Grasses and mullein across the way.

You Can Go Home Again

We have made it to one of my most anticipated stays along the roads of our journey. Denver, Colorado. Denver is a place we once thought, felt, and were convinced, would be the place where we would spend the rest of our lives. We came out here after graduating from the Univ of Connecticut in 1973. Cathy came to attend Denver University for grad school in special education, focusing on the field of speech and language. I followed because I had spent a college summer in Aspen in 1969, had really liked Colorado and liked her more. Marriage followed only months later. We went back to New Jersey for that and what turned out to be one of the greatest parties of my life. Back to Colorado, we set roots and made a family with both our kids being born here. We experienced a full and rich young married life making many friends, with many of those friends becoming the lifelong type. While we ended up moving on in 1986 thanks to my career and promotion/transfers, we still hold on to our roots in Colorado. We are back here now and it still feels like home.  We have had a whirlwind 5 day start to our Denver time with nonstop visits with many of these close friends. These are folks with whom time between visits disappears when we get together. That time evaporates and we are right back to where we were the last time we socialized. That is a beautiful part of that special relationship we all form with dear friends.  Denver, of course, has changed since those 70’s years. Grown immensely, it has blossomed beyond the ability of the infrastructure of the highways and all related to that to properly handle. Traffic is a nightmare. It is similar to other very popular places we have seen in our travels. To paraphrase the movie line from Field of Dreams, “Doesn’t matter if you build it or not, they will come”. That aside, it is still Denver. We are loving it. As stated, old friends are wonderful and do nothing but grow in importance as we get older.  We have spent our first five days with a full calendar of meals, bike rides, golf, more meals and endless conversations catching up with the lives of each other and reminiscing, ok...rehashing yet again, many of the moments, mostly hilarious, that we have shared. The next week promises, indeed is scheduled, with more of the same. It is great. Have I stated this?...I love Colorado. We can and have come home again.

Farewell Rocky Mountain National Park

Here in Estes Park, Colorado, we have enjoyed a nice RV park setting with great and easy access to the Nat'l Park. Nice views from our camp site, and a nice goodbye sky this evening in soft pastels after some fun afternoon thunder and lightning. Bye Bye RMNP.

TUNDRA!

A favorite word of mine since we “discovered” it in the mid 70’s living in metro Denver. Say it out loud, TUNDRA! It sounds just like the Russian it is. The sign here at Rocky Mountain National Park says it means “treeless” in Russian. Tundra! We took the Trail Ridge Road up above the 11,500 foot altitude line where trees cannot find a way to survive. Amazingly, this thick, matted, multi specimen turf of dwarf plants takes over. It is topography of frost heaved rocks and this wonderful carpet of vegetation. The flowers are everywhere and are all teeny. The plants make hay when the sun shines. They exist for five months without temperatures ever rising above freezing in the long winter at altitude. The growing season is barely 3 months. It is tender this tundra. A footprint can take decades to repair. I stopped at a walkway many times to bend to the side to touch, (“pet”),  the various plants. The intertwined nature of it is reminiscent of peat moss. It is a type of fairy tale land, up there above the trees.