The air is different here — lighter — and the sky is huge. I feel like I could swim through the sky. And the luscious stars at night. The curl has gone out of my hair, and Graham’s, but that’s okay. It’s the tundra-do. Rocky Mt National Park was amazing, and you can read all about that from my fellow adventurers below. When we left the park we drove through some of the emptiest landscape I have ever seen. Not a tree or a building or a cow as far as the eye could see — just rolling hills covered in scrub. It felt a little like swimming in an ocean of desert.
We spent the night in the middle of that ocean — Rock Something, WY, and did laundry and swam laps in the Holiday Inn pool. Today the Tetons and then Yellowstone.
More later,
lizard
I love camping. I love spending money so we can pretend we’re homeless in the middle of the wilderness.
It wasn’t all bad, I mean at least there were no showers. And we even got to sleep on the cold hard ground with wind blowing so hard, it would have blown the tent away if it wasn’t staked to the ground. And the bathroom smelled just like a natural bathroom (that isn’t cleaned) should.
–Walker
Elk butt!
The day before yesterday we went on a long hike to a beautiful lake with snow around it (in JUNE!). The next day, we slept. That was all.
-Graham
Graham looking at Moraine meadow.
Come April 15, I’m going to remember Rocky Mountain National Park. Your tax dollars at work, folks, and what great work they are doing in the national park system.
We camped two nights at Moraine campground on the east side of the park. We overlooked an alpine valley — a high wetland where the elk came daily to nibble grasses and pose for photographs. In the distance, the rocky high peaks, still sporting big amounts of snow, posed in equally regal style.
High-stakes poker — winner gets the largest burger.
We hiked a couple of hours up to Mills Lake (I’m sure the kids will tell you about that), an alpine lake surrounded by rocky peaks. The trailhead was at an elevation of about 9,000 feet and we climbed a little less than a thousand feet, making this the highest place I’ve ever walked to. The beauty and altitude were breathtaking. We saw one hiker take the plunge, but the water temperature was cold enough to foil even Walker, the most intrepid of cold-water bathers.
Mills Lake
Our second day in the park we drove the Ridgetop Road, which climbs to over 12,000 feet in the center of the park. Above the treeline, tundra survives a very short growing season and an even shorter tourist season (what part of stay off the tundra do these folks not understand?) We saw herds of elk, two elk up close, a hastily retreating marmot, tiny wildflowers, snow pack, and mile upon mile upon mile of high peaks stretching into the distance.
As the chilly winds blew and we piled on the fleece, I thought of our buddies back in the hot and humid Southeast. It’s a big old country, this land is. Someone should be taking pictures.
–Tim
Tim above the tree line. That hairstyle I’m sporting is called a “tundra cut.”
Bugs leave longer smears on the windshield when you drive west.
– Tim
Camp site 146 in Moraine Park Campground in Rocky Mountain National Park. The peak in the distance is Long’s Peak, an easy to spot landmark because it’s the highest point in the park.
Below, Walker and Graham cool their dogs after a 2 hour hike up to Mills Lake, a snowmelt fed lake at an elevation just below 10,000 feet.
If nothing else, I have learned one thing from this trip so far. Or rather, I am confused on one point. Why in the world would Dorothy rather live in KANSAS than OZ? Think about it. Oz was full of wizards and witches and munchkins and exciting things. Kansas is full of grass and tornados. GRASS and TORNADOS. She would rather go back to the land of black and white than live in a world full of yellow brick roads. I mean, seriously! The grass is always greener on the other side, but at least the Oz wasn’t carpeted in that horrible, itchy stuff!!
-Graham
Kansas stretched on and on today, starting with rolling hills in the east and gradually giving way to flat plains stretching in every direction. We could see the rain coming for miles and finally hit thunder storms about the time we passed into Colorado.
We used the personal electronic devices a lot today: DVDs of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, PSP video games, books on tape (Nevada Barr with a very disturbing Anna Pigeon ranger mystery set in Rocky Mountain National Park, where we will camp tomorrow, if all goes well). I listened to a podcast about improving family communication.
– Tim
High action on the high plains
1. All systems go.
2. Ice cream break in western Kansas
3. Ever present fast food and grain elevators in western Kansas.
Liz here – Okay, we’ve seen a lot of asphalt fly by and spent a lot of time digging around in the bottom of the van for the right plug-ins for this and that, but we’ve also seen how beautiful our country is and how varied it can be from mile to mile. I love the long stretches of grass and plains and the big big sky. The clouds look like live animals.
The trips I took out west with my family in the 1960s keep coming to mind. Tonight we are in a motel in Denver that I think we stayed in when I was about 9. It looks about that old. Anyway, tomorrow we head into Rocky Mountain National Park for hiking and camping so we will likely be away from the internet for a few days. Yay!
–Liz
Today we saw the glorious landscape of Indiana - wheat fields, wheat fields, and wheat fields. And one sewege lagoon. Now we all know first hand why it is call the Smelly Bread Basket of America.
Dad always insists on making us do weird poses. By the way, we’re swimming.
-Graham
“Man, that guy has a bronze tan”
Today my wildest dreams were fulfilled. Since I was a young boy I dreamed of going into a car for 13 hours with no one but my “wonderful” family, h
ave a full bladder for 85% of the entire day. There was one good point to the day. I saw Skeeter Mountain rest stop reminding me that there is a god up there.
Thought of the day:
If you ever need to get more in touch with yourself, just look in the mirror: you’re right there
Skeeter Mountain rest stop.
-Walker