We went on a guided tour of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. It was cool. Our tour guide obviously loves what he does and they had lots of hands on displays to show how climate works etc. Heard one of those “can you believe where our tax money goes stories”. They studied whether the methane released by termites (oh yeah, that little wood eating bug) is significant factor in global warming. It isn’t by the way in case it had you worried. They have a chaos pendulum too. It provided the visual for how complex systems (there example of course being climate) do unexpected stuff (chaos) when there are even small disturbances in them. I have to agree, life can be like that!

He is out of here. We bought a trap and baited it with pnut butter (that was our evening snack that first time we saw him). Guess he couldn’t resist. I felt a little bad, that is until we had to clean up all the poopies and mess he had made in that short time. Ah, just the two of us again.

Right there, perched on the dinette cushion while we had a bedtime snack. My first thought; oh, so cute. My next thought, crap, he’s in the motorhome. What has he been doing and who did he bring with him? He scurried off. I didn’t sleep so well that night. I heard him getting into everything. Rustling and squeaking and those pattering feet sounded like size 13 shoes to me. He has GOT TO GO

Maybe for the best. We found an absolutely beautiful county park, Hermit Ridge, on the top of the mountain just outside of Estes Park. We stayed 4 days. We nearly had the place to ourselves. It was at 8500 ft so got kinda cold…27F one night. Good thing we have lots of blankets. There was snow the next morning. It was beautiful and thankfully, soon melted. There were some trails too. We tried out one, saw two coyotes and watched them for a while.

Elk – Estes Park – the city herd
There are elk everywhere. We watched from very close (maybe 30 ft) as the elk took over the golf course. It is fall rut so there is much bugling, lots of posturing by the bulls and a few scuffles. We had to move out of the way a few times when the bulls decided to face off. Lots of people around, those poor elk just didn’t get any privacy.

Elk – The Park herd
Bull Elk with harem of 117 females. He expended a lot of energy keeping the “girls” together and away from the 9 younger bulls in the same meadow seeking their chance. A Ranger talk likened it to a high school after football game dance. Great extended metaphor. Too long for this entry but perhaps some other time

Breath taking view for the passenger. Breath holding experience for the driver. It was very winding and steep and pretty narrow. I saw the big horn sheep. Kent saw asphalt and sheet metal. Great drive though. He’s getting pretty good a handling this big rig.

Heading West on 26 to pick up I-25 toward Rocky Mountain National Park. Lots of prong horned sheep. They say they don’t cross fences but they seem to be everywhere!
Then it was mile after mile of sage brush and open prairie. Not so very exciting!

It is a little spooky to see the gates for closing interstates and major roads, but then I guess when winter comes they really don’t want you out here. Today we passed a “chains installation” area just as we started up one of the passes. Good thing it was sunny today.

Fort Laramie National Mon. – Very well done with great interpretive signs. All the early trails came through here, Oregon, Mormon, California and the other one that I already forget. Fun stop. Later stopped at the Oregon Trail ruts. Amazing how they are worn so deep in solid rock. Saw signature cliff too.

Guernsey State Park
Reservoir drained 20+ft for winter. Black Canyon Point provided a beautiful setting for the night. So quiet and so very dark! Road in and out challenging with motorhome. Kent rode the bicycle to register after locating site…maybe not such a great idea. It was approx 3 miles each way with some hills the old legs were not interested in pulling so some pushing of the bike was required. Gone too long, Lynn started to worry and wonder how to get the Miata out (we were backed into the site) to go search. Lots of wild turkeys and what looked like a bobcat as we were leaving camp.