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| The expedition team: (back) Dan "Don't panic on a mountain" Conlin, Lindsay "air mattress" St Louis, and Jason "I thought the Rockies would be a bit rockier" Mcleod |
Sorry I didn't actually get to post updates while on the trip, unfortunately computers require electricity and that is in short supply in Rocky Mountain National Park. Day 1 was a blast, we loaded the car up to the gills and left at about 6:30 AM . Yes we probably looked like the Beverly Hillbillies but at least we were prepared for pretty much everything short of a hurricane. In retrospect I can't remember not having anything we needed the entire trip, except electricity and showers. Anyways, we pretty much drove straight through Missouri, and reached Kansas City within a few hours. I was surprised that the sky looked so smoggy and brown because I have been there before and don't remember the pollution looking quite so bad. It has been an excessively hot summer, so maybe that's why. On our way through Kansas we started seeing signs for the Wizard of Oz museum in Wamego, Kansas and of course we had to stop. Wamego certainly didn't have a lot going for
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| Wizard of Oz Museum, Wamego, KS |
it short of the museum and its neighbor Toto's Tacos. I think I managed to capture the entire town in about 3 pictures. Inside the museum they had a pair of Dorothy's ruby slippers, life size characters, and tons of memorabilia including posters, books, and everything else you could possibly think of related to the movie. I have now seen 2 pairs of ruby slippers, the one at the Smithsonian, and this one. Having exhausted all that is
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| Wamego, KS |
Wamego we got back in the car, drove the 10 miles back to the highway and hit the road. It wasn't long before we again saw signs beckoning us to stop. This time it was for the Custer house at Fort Riley, KS. Being that it is on an active military base we had to go through the obligatory checkpoint and then quickly found the house. We walked in the door and were immediately met by either Eleanor Roosevelt or Big Bird's cousin who lost all her feathers (thank you Jason). Funny thing, as soon as we started the tour she told us that although it is called the Custer house, Custer never actually lived there. Instead he lived 2 houses down the road and that house is still occupied. The house was furnished to the period of the 1870s and our guide said that she liked to think that Custer had touched the railings on the way upstairs at the house while visiting his neighbors. I like to think Custer must have been diddling the lady of the house while he was touching those railings since there are only bedrooms up there.
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| Fake Custer House |
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| Stanley Hotel |
Across the street from the so called Custer house is the grave of "Chief," the last US cavalry horse, and a parade field. Fort Riley actually has a lot of different museums and maybe on a future trip we will have to stop and see what else is there. Again we were back on the road and finally made it to Drake, CO around 11 that night. We had rented a cabin at the 7 Pines RV park. When we arrived we could hear running water but weren't able to see that the Big Thompson River ran just a few feet away. The couple who owned the place were very nice, the cabin was beautiful, and I'm sorry to say that we didn't stay there longer but we had to go. We took our last showers and headed up the road to Estes Park. It was still pretty early in the morning when we got there so we went to the Stanley Hotel for breakfast. The Stanley is a beautiful turn of the century hotel and was the inspiration for The Shining by Stephen King. Nothing spooky happened there but I did have elk benedict, and shared some of Jason's elk sausage. Elk is yummy, tastes a lot like venison which shouldn't surprise me since they are pretty much just giant deer. After breakfast we explored the hotel a bit and had coffee on the front porch before we left for the campground. We got to RMNP too early to check in at Moraine Park Campground so we decided to take a 45 minute nature hike with the ranger to help Jason work on his Junior Ranger Badge. Little did he know that a lot of work goes into getting one of these and he still doesn't have one.
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| Park ranger with Big Mac box full of woodland yummies |
The ranger was a good sport, putting on a presentation that was obviously meant for small children to a bunch of adults. He had us sniffing trees, and made a glacier out of a rock and his boot. Kind of hard to explain on here. Ask me some time and I will demonstrate. Finally it was time to check in. We went to the campground, set up our tent and then decided that we would go for a light hike. We chose the Nymph, Emerald, Dream Lake hike because it was rated as a short easy hike. However, when you are a flatlander, no hike is a short easy one. Compared to what we did over the next few days this one was easier and offered just as much scenery. We started at the Bear Lake Trailhead and continued first to Nymph Lake. This one was filled with lots of lily pads and had great views of the mountains. As we continued up the trail we found a rock (imagine that) outcropping, climbed to the top of it, and found some of the best views of the mountains that we would experience on the entire trip. Going further up the trail we found Dream Lake, and then Emerald. On the way Lindsay and Jason took some time off to take a dip in a small mountain stream that we passed. I sat out on the swimming expeditions. If you look at their faces in the pictures it looks painfully cold. Emerald Lake at the base of Hallet Peak and Flattop Mountain was the last stop on the trail and it was beautiful.
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| We found this beast sunning himself on a rock at Emerald Lake |
Once we got there Jason and Lindsay decided to go swimming again. Once they were done in the water we decided to venture around the lake to the "Pool of Jade." We hopped across the boulders all the way to the other side of the lake however when we realized that the pool was probably another 1000 feet up the side of Hallett Peak we took a few pictures and hopped our way back to the trail. Dehydrated and tired we headed back to camp for the night.
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