The hiking couple

On the road again Aug. 16, 2009 – Sept. 6, 2009 It is time to head to South Dakota and renew our driver’s licenses. We are also planning to take some time to just sit back and relax as this has so far been a very busy and tiring summer. We did get to Mount Rushmore during the day and again at night for the lighting ceremony. We also went to the Crazy Horse Monument to see how much work has been done in the last five years, a little bit but not enough to really tell. A couple of times we all took rides into the Black Hills National Forest, once looking for ghost towns and another to do a little walking. We found a couple of Ghost towns and a really nice trail made out of an old railroad line from Hill City to Deadwood, which we hope to walk the distance of some later time. Another time we drove out to Wounded Knee and the site of the Dec. 29, 1890 massacre which was about the end of the Indian Wars and the beginning of peace. Afterwards we drove up to the Badlands for some hiking. One day the wind got so strong it tried to tear the awning off the motor home, so we had to get that fixed and we needed to get an oil change on the motor home also. We also took a tour of Jewel Cave, the 2nd largest cave in the country. For the most part it is a dry cave which means that there are not a lot of formations and we didn’t see very many of the so called crystal formations that gave the cave its name. All in all it was a very quiet and relaxing time. Sept. 7, 2009 – Sept. 14, 2009 Time to move on again and this time we went to Rocky Mountain National Park. This was during the elk mating season, so we got to hear all the male elk bugle. It was not what we expected, we figured with such a large animal the sound would be something deep but instead it was more like a high pitched screech. The first time we heard it we thought it was a child screaming. The elk were all over the place and several times when we were walking Sampson in the campground we had to go up over hills and through empty camp sites as the elk were on the road. They even came into the small group of trees by the camp site and we got pictures from the door. The male elk each try to collect a harem of females and it is a little sad to see a lone buck walking around bugling without any females. We took the road (Trail Ridge) up to the Alpine visitor’s center which is at 11,796 feet, over two miles above sea level. There is a kind of grass growing here that takes a very long time to grow so it is very fragile; it is above the tree line and in an area where the glaciers last all year long. The next day all of us drove up the original dirt road (Old fall River), which is one way up and only open from the 4th of July until mid October. When we reached the Alpine center we continued down the west side of the park to see what was over there, this is the side that has the Colorado River running down the mountains. Personally we think that the east side of the park is the prettiest. Up above 9,000 feet the aspen trees have stated changing colors to yellow and gold. From below when looking up the groups of aspen trees among the pines look like someone took a paint brush and swiped gold pain across the mountain side. One day we drove out through Estes Park and south to the Wild Basin area and took a short walk to some water falls, on the way we stopped at the Longs Peak area where the 7 mile trail to the top of Longs Peak starts. Longs Peak is the tallest in Rocky Mountain National Park at 14,259 feet; we didn’t plan to climb it. This is the thirteenth of the 54 “fourteeners” in the Rocky Mountains, mountains over 14,000 feet and is also the mountain on the Colorado quarter. On another day we drove out to the Bear Lake area at 9, 475 feet and then hiked up to Nymph Lake at 9,700 feet and then continued on to Dream Lake at 9,900 feet and started on to Emerald Lake at 10,080 feet, but it started to rain and since Emerald Lake was above the tree line we decided that it wasn’t a good idea to continue as we didn’t want to be the tallest thing around if there was any lightning. On one of our trips into Estes Park we found out that hotel that Stephen King used for the Shinning was the Stanley and it is considered one of the most haunted places in the country. By the time we left we had been on every road in the park and felt that we had done a very good job of seeing every thing we could without doing any real strenuous hiking. Sept. 15, 2009 - Sept. 30, 2009 For our next stop we moved a little south in Colorado to Colorado Springs. Since Sampson had not been allowed on the trails in Rocky Mountain we decided to take a day where he could go where ever we did. We started out to a place called Garden of the Gods a park filled with red rocks. When we got to the park it started to rain hard enough to keep us from being able to get out and walk around, so we decided to try someplace else. We headed out to Royal Gorge, but when we got there the only way to see it was through an amusement area and the cost was $24 per person even if all you wanted to do was look at the gorge and the bridge. Sampson wasn’t allowed in this area and we couldn’t see paying $48 to look at a hole in the ground and since it looked like it was going to rain again we just went home. The next day we went to see Miramont Castle a home built by Father Jean Baptiste Francolon for him and his mother in 1895, the four floors followed the hillside with the front door on the 1st floor and the back door on the 4th floor. With an addition on the east side in 1897 the house doubled in size, but by 1900 the Francolon’s had abandoned the house and returned to France. The building then went through several different uses including apartments for the soldiers returning from World war II before being bought by the Historical Society and being restored. Afterwards we took the cog railway up to the top of Pikes Peak at an altitude of 14,115 feet and a couple of inches of snow. Unfortunately it was a partially cloudy day and when we got to the top we were looking down on the top of the clouds. It did clear a little bit just before we had to get back on the train, so we did get a short look down on the city below. The next day we headed out towards Kansas to visit with our son Chris and his family. Along the way we stopped at Fort Scott National Historic Site in Fort Scott, Kansas. The fort was built in 1842 as part of a line of forts from Minnesota to Louisiana to keep peace between the Indians and whites after the Indians had been moved into the west. In 1855 the fort was sold at auction and the town of Fort Scott began to grow. From 1858 through 1859 the territory of Kansas was in turmoil as both sides of the slavery issue tried to decide which way Kansas would enter the Union, soldiers returned several times to try and keep peace. During the Civil War the Union army returned and occupied many of the old buildings and built new ones to serve as a major supply depot for the Union armies in the West. Finally arrived at our campground near Chris’ house in Osage City. We spent several days here and had a real good visit with Chris, his wife Lena and girls Rebecca, Cylest, Courtney and Charlotte. When we left we headed to Branson, Missouri and spent a week seeing several really good shows. The first show we went to was the Andy Williams show at his Moon River Theater. For an 82 year old man he put on a really good show, we hope we can be in as good shape at that age. He has a family of four girls and their parents singing back up, he called them his newest Osmond brothers. Also, he had a Red Skelton impersonator on the show that was excellent; this man even does his own show of tribute to Red. The second show was Legends in Concert at the Dick Clark American Bandstand Theater. The show was impersonators of Jerry Lee Lewis, Donna Summer, the Blues Brothers, Bobby Darin and Elvis. The music was very good but the impersonations left a little bit to be desired except for Bobby Darin, he was pretty good, even if he did have on too much makeup. Our next show was Yakov Smirnoff’s comedy show. Yakov is a Russian born art professor who immigrated to America in 1977 with his parents. He became an American citizen in 1986 and has shown how fully he has accepted his adopted country in many ways. He became a famous comedian and enjoys making fun of himself and his native country, Russia. In 2006 he received his master’s degree in positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania; he is an instructor at Missouri State University and teaches the business of laughter. He started his show with the National Anthem as a show of respect for this country that he really appreciates. The next night we went to see a tribute to Elvis put on by Tony Roi a great impersonator. Tony began singing rock ‘n roll in the 50’s and 60’s and it was during these shows that he started his tribute to Elvis and his popularity took off. Our final show was Paul Revere and the Raiders and Bill Medley. The unusual thing about Paul Revere is that he is not the lead singer in his band even if he is the leader, he plays the piano. One of two lead singers, Darrin Medley, is the son of Bill Medley. Bill Medley is one of the Righteous Brothers, the other one Bobby Hatfield died in Kalamazoo, Michigan in November 2003. All of the show where really great and we enjoyed them very much. We plan to come back another time for more of the shows. We were disappointed in Andy Williams as his was the only show that didn’t ask the vets in the audience to stand and then thank them for their service to the country.