Sunday, August 30, 2009

Colorado













The pictures are of 'Poncho" a 'ponkey' born July 23,2009 at Terry Bison Ranch, Bear Lake and Alberta Falls in Rocky Mountain National Park, the Air Force Academy Chapel and inside the Protestant organ and the Jewish Chapel downstairs, a mountain goat we saw coming down from Pike's Peak, us at the top of Pike's Peak and looking towards Kansas from the top of PP,and the last four pictures are of Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, from the Visitors Center, Pulpit overview, Cross Fissures overview and the East Portal from the bottom looking up to the road that is a 16% grade.




We took a week to drive to Colorado and enjoyed the scenery through NV, UT and WY. We visited Angel Lake near Wells, NV and enjoyed all the animals at Terry Bison Ranch near Cheyenne, WY. Larry even had a llama chase him! I was too scared to even think of taking a picture which would have been funny but he used his umbrella to scare him off and we scrambled over the fence to safety.

We spent six days in Loveland while we went to Rocky Mt National Park. There is a tram from Estes Park to the National Park and then we took the free tram around the park. We hiked around Bear Lake and then up to Alberta Falls. There where way too many people to really enjoy the falls and the pine beetle that is killing the trees makes the scenery not all that beautiful so we were disappointed to say the least.

We then moved on to Monument, CO and visited the Air Force Academy, drove up Pike's Peak and visited my cousin Mary who we saw in AZ last Jan after 18 years. We enjoyed our stay near Colorado Springs and have many more places in the area to visit on our next visit.

We are currently near Gunnison, CO and had a 'incident' as we crossed Monarch Pass (11,300'). We had a can of paint explode in the trailer from the change in pressure. It could have been disastrous but PTL the damage was confined to one cabinet and Larry had everything wrapped in plastic or in a box so nothing was damaged except it took the paint off the shelf. (The paint had separated and only the thinner exploded out of the can, hence why the paint came off the shelf.)

We visited the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park while here. I didn't even know anything about this National Park. It has been a NP just since 1999 but it is AWESOME! After viewing the canyon from the top, we drove to the bottom, a 16% grade! Colorado has some beautiful scenery and we are so blessed to be able to visit much of it.