Chuck and Naomi Adventures in RV Land

Aug 20 – Glenwood Canyon, Steamboat Springs, Laramie

On August 20, after a short hike up Mushroom Mountain, we left Carbondale for Glenwood Springs, following the same route we did the previous day by bicycle.  The view is beautiful, with hills alternating between red, white and grey.

Glenwood Springs is named after its hot springs (and is one of many towns in the area with hot springs resorts).  However, with temperature reaching into the 90s, we were not in the least tempted to try out the attraction.

Instead, we turned away from the Roaring Forks River to follow the Colorado through Glenwood Canyon.  This is a really incredible drive through the steep gorge cut by the still small river.  The gorge is so narrow that in places the highway is on two levels. 

The route was designed for tourism, and so there are 4 substantial rest areas with picnic sites and interpretative signs.  There is a 16 mile paved bicycle trail that runs along the river (and I think joins up with the trail along the Roaring Forks to Aspen). 

We decided to stop for the night at Steamboat Springs, another cute skiing town.   The Yampa River runs through the town and past the KOA.  There is a free bus that goes through town and to the KOA.  A popular summer activity is to take the bus to town with your inner tube, and then tube back to the KOA.  It was appealing, but we decided not to invest in inner tubes.  Instead, we took the bus into town and treated ourselves to a fancy dinner.

After seeing so many hummingbirds at Dillon Lake, we were not surprised to see hummingbirds hovering around the hanging baskets in downtown Steamboat Springs.  However, when we got close, we realized that these were actually hummingbird moths – about the same size and shape as the birds, but slower to dart away and definitely moths (note the antennae).

Our next stop was Laramie WY, where we wanted to visit a couple of old friends – Ken, whom we had not seen since he graduated from my program (1992) and Tim, who we met more recently while on sabbatical in NC. 

En route to Laramie, we stopped for lunch in Walden CO which bills itself as the Moose Viewing Capital of Colorado.  Still on our quest to see a moose in the wild, we decided to detour to the Moose Visitors Center. 

There we got a lot of information about moose (e.g. the reason you seldom find the shed antlers is that they are eaten by mice), saw a lot of birds, and hiked through moose habitat.  We got tips from the ranger about where moose had recently been spotted, but as it was midday, the moose did not make an appearance. 

The hike started with a few stairs, and unfortunately Chuck twisted his ankle on the last one (which was more of a root).   He continued to suffer the effects of that twist for almost 3 weeks, but fortunately he was still able to hike and bike (with care).

We then continued our mooseless travels over the scenic Rabbit Ears Pass.  Each time we saw a pair of peaks we speculated that they were the Rabbit Ears.  However, when the ears appeared they were obvious.

Ken now plays bass in a bluegrass band and we met up with him at a local bar where one of his friends was playing.  It had that small-town, music venue ambience, with Ken seeming to know everyone.  We enjoyed the music, the pizza and Ken’s company.  He had band practice at 7:30 and the set ended at 8:00, so we meandered around downtown a bit and then went back to the RV.

Laramie was another new RV experience.  Laramie is a place where if you can park you can sleep in your vehicle.  We found that by putting the passenger side wheels on the curb of Ken’s lawn, the RV was almost perfectly flat.  We slept on the street for the next 2 nights.

One of the things I starting thinking about in Wyoming is that Wyoming (population 1/2 million) has 2 federal senators — the same as California (population 40 million).  In fact, as of April 2010, the 9 most populous states (18 senators) have over 50% of the population, while the 21 least populous  (42 senators) have combined less than 1/6. No gerrymandering, voter suppression etc could do more to skew “one person one vote” more than the rules for the Senate!

It turned out that Ken was insanely busy during our visit, and so we did not get to spend as much time with him as we would have liked.  However, we did get caught up on family life, heard about his music, visited the food co-op he had started to organize and saw the U Wyoming campus with him. 

We spent most of Thursday wandering around Laramie.  This is a town that prides itself on its cowboy past.  We enjoyed going into one of the tourist shops that sells “cowboy” gear.  The clerk was a fairly recent import from the east who was very eager to tell us about the attractions of the town and the surrounding mountains.  It was a pleasure to meet someone who so clearly had found the right place for herself.

Among his many university roles, Ken serves as a liaison between UWY and the Native American Community (and is part First Nations).  On Friday, he left early in the morning to help set up the Sundance at the Wind River Lakota Indian Reservation. 

After our own much later leisurely start, we called Tim and arranged to go cycling and to the historic Territorial Prison.  Laramie is split in 2 by a large railyard.  Downtown and the university are on one side;  the river, recreation trail and Prison are on the other.  We biked to Tim’s house (quite close to Ken’s) and then up the overpass of the railyard.  This took us to the Prison, which has an interesting history.

The Territorial Prison is one of the oldest extant buildings in Wyoming.  It was built as a federal prison in the 1870s when Wyoming was a territory and housed prisoners convicted of federal crimes, including women.  It was transferred to UWY in 1901 for use as their Agricultural Research Station.  UWY stopped using the buildings in 1989.  Tim was already living in Laramie at that time and worked as a police officer.  He has some stories about wandering around the abandoned site.  Now it is a museum, with interesting facts about the prison, prison life (no talking allowed) and the prisoners who were confined there.

One interesting fact about the Prison is that the goal was rehabilitation, and some prisoners were able to start fresh and successful lives after serving their terms.  Sadly, however, some who were convicted of relatively minor crimes had their sentences increased dramatically due to infractions (such as escape attempts).  The museum was much more interesting than you might expect.  The focus of the museum is actually biographical material about the prisoners — there is even an book available with the compiled biographies.

The prison focused on job training along with punishment.  Many prisoners were illiterate upon arrival, but almost all could read by the time they were released. If a prisoner arrived with skills, he or she was encouraged to pursue his/her trade while incarcerated.  A master furniture maker who fell into debt and tried to forge a check was one such prisoner.  Not only did he complete several beautiful pieces of furniture for a local mansion, he also trained a number of other prisoners in furniture making.  The prison also produced brooms for the US market, training prisoners in broom-making.  This was considered a good trade, because it required little skill or literacy.  Brooms and whisks are now made by volunteers as part of the demonstration and can be purchased in the gift shop.

Another interesting exhibit was the sheep wagon.  Whole families lived in these wagons following the sheep herds, and Tim says there were still wagons in use when he moved to Laramie.  In any case, the wagons, which presumably were pulled by horses or mules, were about 25 feet long and included a kitchen, sleeping quarters and storage.  In short, they strongly resembled a modern RV!

Tim took us to a Mexican restaurant on the far side of the railyard for lunch.  There are not many businesses on that side of the tracks, but this place seemed quite popular.

After leaving Tim, we packed up the van and headed out towards Yellowstone.

August 15 – Gunnison, Crested Butte, Carbondale

While at Dillon Lake, we had several people suggest that we go to Crested Butte, and so we headed south.

After staying for such a long time in a national forest campground, we decided we needed a night at a commercial campground with hookups (to recharge everything that is chargeable) showers  and laundry.  We decided to stay at the Gunnison KOA.  It had some nice chainsaw carvings. 

But most notably, it had a lot of farm animals roaming around including several goats, donkeys and horses, a very large pig and Norman the bull.  (Norman was confined to a stall, which was just fine with me.)  The goats and the pig like to hang out in the sandbox, near the sign prohibiting pets in the playground.

We had a quiet day and even got some work done. 

On August 16 we headed out for the picturesque town of Crested Butte.  The Butte itself is quite impressive and towers over the town.  We walked around the cute downtown. 

Someone in town does quite impressive metal sculptures, and we detoured to take photos of St. George and the dragon.

The popular campground near Crested Butte is at Irwin Lake, rather far into the national forest.  For better or worse, the campground was full and we decided to join some other boondockers at a site below the lake with a spectular view into the mountains. (The cell phone camera is too wide angle to do justice to the view.)

This was our first real boondocking experience – camping on federal land where there are no facilities (although at this particular site there were clearly several established campsites with fire pits).

Boondocking means that we have to rely on the RV and its resources for all aspects of daily life – toilet, shower, cooling, refrigeration and cooking.  Our RV seems to be coming through with high colors – the black tank is filling appropriately, the water heater runs on either propane or electricity and heats the water sufficiently for a nice shower, and the space does not feel too cramped.  The air conditioner needs substantial power and therefore can run only if we run the generator, which is noisy and produces noxious fumes.  However, the fan runs off the house battery and quickly brings the interior to outside temperatures if there is any air intake – typically we leave a window or vent open.  Nights are cold in Crested Butte — one night it was 27F at about 2 a.m. and likely got colder later.  However, we found that with a quilt, a knitted afghan and a flannel sheet, we are too warm in the tiny bed – we don’t need a heater until we get up in the morning. At Crested Butte, the outside temperatures increase very rapidly once the sun is up, and so we never used the heater at all.

Our refrigerator runs on the house battery.  It works very well – sometimes our ice cream is rock hard.  On a sunny day in the mountains, the solar panels are sufficient to keep the house battery charged.  If we drive (which we did not do in Crested Butte) about an hour of driving fully charges the battery.   When necessary, the generator can also charge the house battery, but as mentioned, it is quite noisy.

Speaking of electricity, we also need to charge up all of our devices, from the phones to the electric shaver.  Anything that can be charged using a USB charger can be done directly from the house battery.  We also have an inverter that sends 110V current to some of our outlets from the house battery.  Of course, charging anything depletes the house battery so we try to do this when the sun is high.

When we have external power, I cook using our electric frying pan, our Instant Pot or the microwave.  When we do not have power, I use our propane burners.  However, when we got to Crested Butte, we had lots of left-overs that would be best reheated in the microwave.  Fortunately, microwave cooking is fast.  We turned on the generator for 10 minutes and supper was done.  Our nearest neighbor was fine with this — he turns on his generator in the morning for a few minutes to run his juicer and coffee maker.  We can get away from it all, but it seems we don’t really want to!

The campsite is at the junction of several hiking, mountain biking and off-road trails.  We did a short hike up a hillside the first day and then we did a substantial hike the second day, trekking through woods, around a high lake and also along the road.

Again, there were lots of wildflowers — in fact, at some points the flowers were so thick I felt I was going through someone’s garden.

Our campsite overlooked several beaver ponds, which appeared to be excellent habitat for beaver (duh!) and moose.  However, in the 3 days we spent there, we saw a single mule deer and no other mammals.

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On the 18th we headed for Carbondale.  The road is very scenic, winding along rivers and through mountains. 

We stopped for lunch at a pretty waterfall (and almost got hit on the head by rocks dislodged from the top by some incompetent hikers).

The scenery en route is lovely.

Carbondale is another cute touristy town.  It is dominated by Mount Sopris.  I think we were ready for a commercial campground, but we stayed instead at a municipal campground (with power) conveniently located between the highway and the main bicycle path.   The campground was also nestled under Red Hill, an impressive chunk of red rock.  From there we were able to cycle into town along one bike path or into Glenwood Springs along the Roaring Forks River bicycle path.

On the 19th we cycled towards Glenwood Springs.  This is quite an interesting bicycle path, which goes along the river. 

The terrain is interesting – although the bicycle path appeared to slope gently, the side away from the river has steep hills – red, white and grey along different parts of the trail. 

After about 9 miles of constant downhill, we decided to turn around.  Oddly, the configuration of the hills makes it seem as if you are going downhill in the opposite direction as well.  The slope is very gentle, so only the fact that the river flows towards Glenwood Springs makes it evident that you are actually climbing on the way back.

I was eager to climb the Red Hill (MushroomMountain).  Because it was very hot during the day, we decided to get up early and climb in the morning before leaving Carbondale.  Parking at the base of the hiking area is tight, but we were finally able to find a spot and then climb the hill.  This was a short hike to the top, from where there is a great view over the mountain and Mount Sopris. 

The area is apparently very popular with mountain bikers, but I think you would need to be very good to come down the steep narrow trails.  (There are also some roads that although steep, are much more reasonable for biking and can be done using a car as well.)

We got to Pine Cove campground on Dillon Lake just before suppert

We missed getting a lakeside site by just a few minutes, but as always there were lots of sites on the other side.  We waited 2 days for a lakeside site, as we did not want to sit around the RV waiting for someone to leave the next day.  However, on our third day, we were able to move and landed right beside the couple that we had met on our previous visit whom Chuck had wanted to see again.  (They had been there when we arrived, but somehow, being on the other side of the parking lot we felt a bit odd going over to say hello — go figure!)

We stayed at Dillon Lake for 10 days, so we did several kayak and bicycle trips multiple times.  So, unlike most of the blog entries, I am going to organize this one by activity.

On Wednesday we biked around the lake on the paved bicycle trail.  This is 19 miles of trail, including an 1100 foot elevation gain and some other hills.  In the direction we did the loop, we climbed Swan Mountain on a designated bicycle lane of the main road and descended on an off-road path. 

If you do the trail in the opposite direction, you share the descent right on the road.  Lots of cyclists were doing it, but we were happy with our direction choice.

I am being very careful about altitude effects.  After a few stops on the way up to catch my breath, I did the last couple of hundred feet walking. 

At the highest point on the road/bike path, there is a walking loop with great vistas over the lake, lots of walkers, and many ground squirrels and chipmunks hoping that the walkers will ignore the “do not feed the wildlife” signs.  (Lots of bags of “wildlife food” and unshelled peanuts were in evidence.)

After the walking loop, there is a long downhill(offroad), a brief climb, and then it is pretty much flat except for a climb up to the town of Dillon.

As always, there was a stunning display of wildflowers.

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We decided to stop for lunch in Dillon, which is the first town directly on the route.  Although rain was threatening as we left, there were only a few sprinkles as we continued along the lakeshore and Dillon Dam, and then through the various campgrounds back to Frisco.  We had done the Dillon to Frisco portion on our first visit to the area, back on July 18, but it seemed longer after doing the climb up Swan Mountain. 

We did the loop again the following Wednesday.  I thought it would be easier the second time round, but I still found the climb up Swan Mountain to be too much, and had to walk part of the way.  We did have enough energy at the end of the ride to do some grocery shopping in Frisco before doing the final 1/2 mile back to the campsite.

After our first circum-lake ride, we spent the next morning at the campground, waiting for a lakeside site.   We hoped to take a paddle after lunch, but multiple thunderstorms swept through the area.   In between storms, it was sunny and pleasant, so we just hung out and watched the humming birds.

The campground is now literally buzzing with hummingbirds. They were attacking anything red — car and RV taillights, bicycle reflectors, Chuck’s red chairs.  Our neighbor put up a feeder (strictly speaking, not allowed) and over the next few days we saw as many as 5 at a time either at the feeder or trying to chase off other hummingbirds. There seem to be 2 types of hummingbird – green and brown – but green are prevalent.  According to the internet, there are 4 local species and several others travel through.

This campground is remarkably sociable.  We met Leanne and Devon, Karen and Adam (hummingbird folks), Janis and Bill, Jodi (Suite T Travato girl), Rick (motorcycle guy), and Ralph.  We spent a lot of time over the next week chatting, sharing Leanne and Devon’s campfire, and doing a few things with Jodi.  On Tuesday (but I am getting ahead of myself) we all went out to $2 taco night at the Rio Grande restaurant — 16 people including a few of Karen’s friends whom we had not previously met.  We also had a lot more casual conversations with other campers with whom we did not exchange contact information.

Chuck spent a lot of time being helpful.  He helped Leanne patch up her paddle board, tried to help another group with their pump, helped Jodi blow up her paddleboard, worked on tire pressure with Devon, gave someone a vehicle battery boost with his portable lithium battery (which worked really well).  And finally, when a sudden windstorm started tearing off awnings, helped Jodi get hers retracted (although not before some parts were bent).  We also gave a number of RV tours to people considering switching to a van.

Friday was our anniversary.  We started off well with a kayak trip on the lake.  Chuck also tried out a paddle kayak in exchange for letting the owner try out our blow-up kayaks.  We then headed for town for dinner.  We were planning on a fancy restaurant, but in the end we went out for Chinese food at a small place on the mall linking the Walmart and the Safeway. 

Saturday had a number of options for music and other events.  We ended up going with Jodi to Dillon for a “van exhibit”.  We toured a lot of van options, including several commercial builds and many self-built models.  We also got to see tents that go on the roof of a car or the bed of a 4×4, and a humongous thing built on what appeared to be a military truck.  Although we saw some clever ideas, all 3 of us concluded that we like the layout of the Travato the best of what we saw.  Only one other layout came close, and it did not have a shower.  We concluded the day with a game of Scrabble with Jodi.

Speaking of showers, the campground is “dry” meaning no electricity, water hook-up or sewer.  Pit bathrooms are available along with a tap that can be used to fill a water container with drinking water.  This put to the test our ability to be off-line.  We found that our best bet is 3 days using the water in our fresh water tank, followed by a shower and then a trip to the dump station to empty our waste water tanks and take on more fresh water. 

On Monday we drove back towards Idaho Springs and did the 14000 foot ascent of  Mount Evans. 

This is a very narrow and twisty road, reminiscent of the Virginia Canyon Road – lots of places where the downhill side was essentially a cliff with no guardrail.

A major attraction of the mountain (after the wildflowers) is the mountain goats.  Near the summit we were in a traffic jam caused by a small herd of goats on the road. 

I was quite concerned because a couple of kids were literally underneath a vehicle licking the pipes.  I checked with a ranger later, who said that they try to keep the goats off the road because they like the taste of vehicle fluids — in particular antifreeze.  Needless to say, these are not a healthy part of goat diet.

The summit was filled with tourists, mountain goats, marmots and park rangers.  The latter were trying (with very limited success) to chase the goats away from the road, vehicles and people.  (The marmots were just hanging out as they seem to do.)  Despite the possibly bad health effects of human interactions on the wildlife, the goats seemed healthy and frisky.  They were certainly abundant.

On the descent we stopped at a wildflower “garden”.  Since every place we have been has been filled with wildflowers, it was only slightly more colorful (and a few flowers were labeled).  The area also has a large stand of bristlecone pines.

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During our stay at Dillon Lake we took several kayaks trips to what we call Eagle Island.  On our first trip, we saw 3 bald eagles.  On another trip, we saw a bald eagle very close up, looking very iconic.  We also saw 3 ospreys (and a nest).  Unfortunately, we did not bring our good camera.  This photo was taken with my cell phone.

Our last trip we took with Jodi (paddling her paddle board like a kayak).  We brought a good camera, and so of course we saw only a single osprey. 

It seems like we can never get an early start – partly due to packing up, but partly because we always seem to need gas, groceries or other items.  As usual, by the time we left Fort Collins it was almost time for lunch.

The start of the drive from Fort Collins to the Rocky Mountains National Park is truly spectacular.  The highway follows a very steep canyon cut by the Thompson River.  It is the type of narrow canyon that could create a flash flood in a heavy rain or sudden snow melt, and that has in fact happened in the past.  Now a flood control dam about 15 miles upstream, where the canyon widens, reduces that risk.

As you come out of the canyon, you are climbing into the mountains, and the scenery continues to be beautiful.

The first place of consequence is Estes Park, which is a municipality, not the park.  This town is crammed with tourists and tourist shops.  It took us about 30 minutes to go the 3 miles from the visitor center to the center of downtown.  After lunch, we walked a few blocks through T-shirt shops, souvenir stores, candy shops (fudge and saltwater taffy are the popular choices), rock shops (lots of geodes) and of course restaurants.  The town runs a free bus to popular hiking and biking destinations, and there are also multiple tour opportunities.  And this is clearly paying off in tourist dollars.

After a late lunch we decided to continue on, with the objective of reaching Granby by evening.  The drive goes up through the mountains and over the continental divide.  It is a paved highway, 4 lanes in most spots, but is still quite challenging due to switchbacks and fairly heavy traffic.  There are lots of scenic viewpoints.

In the late afternoon we came across a real traffic jam.  A large herd of elk was grazing beside the highway.  Needless to say, we and just about everyone else decided to stop to have a look.  With traffic almost at a standstill, about a quarter of the herd decided to meander to the other side of the road.  With the calves skipping about and the adult males growing in their new antlers, it was quite a sight.

Shortly after this, Chuck began to get nervous about the hour (still a couple of hours of daylight), the weather (lightning visible, although no real rain) and the possibility that all the campgrounds would be full (which had been indicated at the park entrance).  We pulled into the first campground we saw, which luckily still had several sites available.  Although it is called “Trout Creek” it is actually on the Colorado River, which here, about 9 miles from the headwaters, is just a creek.

We met a very nice couple from Michigan and did mutual RV tours.

On Monday we slept in and awoke to sunny skies and cool weather.  We took the “Never Summer” trail to a historic farmstead and resort.  It is hard to imagine, but the farm was “homesteaded” in 1902 and the resort closed its doors in 1940.  Again, we find it hard to remember just how young this part of “the west” is.  We continued on the trail up the mountainside until we heard thunder.  Given the danger of lightning strikes, and the very changeable weather, we decided to head back to the RV. 

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Chuck has been practicing his wildlife photography.  He snapped a few birds and some small mammals.  We’ve seen a lot of small mammals such as ground squirrels, chipmunks and picas, and also a lot of birds.

I continue to be amazed at all the wildflowers, many of which are new to me.  As well, the trail we took today was well endowed with the poisonous but beautiful Amanita muscaria mushrooms.  

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After lunch and a couple of games of “Race for the Galaxy” we hoped to head out for another trail.  However, about every 30 minutes the thunder started again.  We even had about 10 minutes of heavy rain.  In the end, we stuck close to home. 

After supper, a few people strolled by and told us that they had seen a moose by the river.  This inspired us to take a late evening walk along the river and the nearby marshlands.  This is definitely prime moose habitat.  However, we still have not seen a moose in the wild, despite a stroll the next morning covering the same ground.

On Tuesday we headed for Grand Lake and Granby.  It was a beautiful drive.  We both needed to get some work done which required using the internet, so we stopped in Granby where the signal was very good.  The Midtown Cafe in Granby proved to be a perfect place to stop for lunch and some work.  It has the feel of a cozy reading room, with good food as a bonus.  They have booths, tables, small cozy den areas and a large library table for working.  It is decorated with books for reading or purchase.  We really could have spent the day there, but since they close at 2:00 we then moved to the local library, which is also a very nice place to work.  We also fielded phone calls from both kids.

We left with plenty of time to find a campsite at one of the National Forest campgrounds.  We found a very nice beachside site on the shore of Granby Lake.  However, we decided that, while very scenic, it was less desirable than returning to Frisco, only an hour drive away.  Our Frisco location has the lake, the view and terrific biking and hiking.

After JSM, We decided to head for Fort Collins to visit friends.  We stayed at a KOA just outside of town, 15 minutes from downtown on the Cache la Poudre bicycle path.  Thanks to cancellations, we were able to stay at the KOA for 3 nights, rather than the 1 night that we were initially able to book.  It is not surprising that this place is popular. 

It is really a family resort, with all sorts of activities that come with your campsite, and a place where you can get pizza and breakfast (for an additional fee) if you do not want to cook.  We took advantage of the pool and mini-golf.  I was very tempted by the little waterpark (with splash fountain features) and the paddle boats.

On Friday we biked along the Cache la Poudre River for about an hour.  We then spotted a Walmart.  Since we realized we were going to be biking back to the KOA at night with no bicycle lights, we headed once again into Walmart (which we do at least once a week) to get lights, and then to Home Depot, next door, to get batteries.  Stocked up (although lights not installed) we then headed for downtown.

We were very impressed by the downtown, which was really hopping and crammed with pedestrians.  It has a very lively pedestrian mall (with live music on summer weekends) and several streets of shopping and restaurants.  It seems very touristy, which probably explains the very heavy traffic between Fort Collins and Denver.

Mary and Jean live in a beautiful home near downtown.  Last time I visited (which was the last time JSM was in Denver) they had just married and moved to Fort Collins.  The house and garden were being renovated.  It all came out beautifully and I was particularly impressed by the large vegetable, herb and flower garden.  We had a wonderful dinner and discussion.  Jean kindly offered to drive us back to the KOA as it was getting dark (and even with our new bike lights, it seemed a bit daunting). As is our wont when visiting friends, we forgot to take pictures.

On Saturday we packed up the RV to change campsites (at the same KOA) and then biked into town again to meet with our friends Ben and Kirsten, who just moved from State College to Fort Collins (much to the dismay of the Stat department at PSU, who lost two great colleagues).  They are in the midst of unpacking, trying to fit the furniture from the old house into the new, etc.  They are also quite close to downtown.

Ben and Kirsten took a break from unpacking to take us hiking at Horsetooth Falls, just outside of Fort Collins.  This is a very popular hike into the mountains above the town reservoir.  “Falls” is an overstatement at this time of year.  There was a tiny trickle of moisture running down the mountainside.  However, it is a very nice and fairly easy trek. 

Afterwards we all walked into town for a late lunch, and then Chuck and I biked back to the campground and set up camp again.  We decided that we really like Fort Collins.   Maybe we can talk one of our kids into moving here.

We arrived at Prospect RV Park in Denver. Naomi has left for the first day at the JSM conference at the convention center. In the mornings I usually stay behind at the RV doing dishes, catching up on email, reading, watching a movie, and working on reinforcement learning. In the afternoon I catch the 44 bus to downtown Denver.

The bus system is setup well. There is a stop not far from the RV park. You buy tickets with an app and just show the driver your phone. Our bus was frequently used by people in wheelchairs and people on bikes. Everyone is usually quiet and doing their own thing except one day a grandmother, the father, and two little daughters got on the back of the bus and started singing the wheels on the bus song for about half an hour. But nobody said anything which I was surprised about. When somebody gets off the bus, they always thank the bus driver, even when leaving by the back door. I’ve never seen this before, but admittedly I don’t ride buses often. Naomi was surprised too.

I love bookstores, so one day I changed buses in downtown and traveled near the zoo to Tattered Cover bookstore east of downtown. It’s an enormous space with a huge wooden bookshelf on 3 levels with an open pit for reading in the middle of the main level. It reminded me of what a library at Hogwarts would look like. They have two staircases to the lower level and on both sides of the stairs are pictures of all the famous writers that have stopped at the store to read and sign their books. It’s very impressive. They also have a cafe, bathrooms, and sitting areas. If there were beds I think I could live there.

Usually downtown I would would up and down the 16th street pedestrian mall doing people watching and window shopping. There are some interesting homeless people on the street. One person had a white rag with THAT printed on one side he would put out. When people walked by, he would say “Don’t step on that”, which got people’s attention. He also offered to do a headstand for 25 cents.

One day I got off the bus early, where a river runs through Denver just north of downtown. People were having a great time there kayaking, swimming, walking dogs, biking on trails, etc. It was a sight I usually see at a park outside town, not in the middle of a large city. I was impressed with how clean the water is and also how much the people enjoyed outside activities in the middle of a large city.

One evening we met our friend Maddy downtown for dinner at the Rio Grande restaurant. The margaritas were strong, conversation flowed, and we had a great time during dinner talking with her. It’s wonderful that she’s doing so well and I’m glad we had a chance to see her.

On Sunday I took a city bus from our campsite to the Denver Conference Center. 

This is very convenient (1 bus, running hourly) but slow.  However, I got there safely and with minimal hassle.  I felt a bit guilty leaving Chuck behind at the rapidly warming campsite.

I have been a professor since 1987, but I still never learn.  When a colleague asked me if I would be a mentor in a workshop on technical writing for “new” statistical researchers, I said yes without asking what would be involved.  It turned out that the workshop ran all day on Sunday and on Tuesday morning, and that I needed to give a one hour presentation at 8 a.m. on Tuesday.  As well, I needed to read and comment on a technical paper written by my mentee.  Needless to say, creating the presentation and reading the paper took up several evenings on the trip. 

Since the workshop was organized by people I know, it was perhaps not surprising that I knew most of the mentors.  I was a bit surprised that I also knew many of the junior researchers, as several were recent PSU grads.  I enjoyed meeting my mentee and giving her feedback on her paper, which had already been submitted for peer reveiw (and returned for revisions).  One of the enjoyable parts of this type of workshop is hearing others give the same advice that you would give.  On the other hand, as the last speaker, I had to listen to the other talks to be sure I was adding something to the discussion.

Sunday evening we had dinner with Maddie, daughter of our good friends Susie and Phil.  She is doing a post doc in biochemistry in Denver and seems to be doing extremely well, having recently received a fellowship for her work.  This is a tough field to break into, with many researchers having to take several postdoctoral positions in different labs before embarking on their own careers as principal investigators, so it was great to hear about her successes.

On Monday at 8:30 I gave a talk on how to write a tutorial for non-statisticians, in a session on teaching statistics via articles.  It was quite fascinating to hear the experiences of the other speakers, especially Prof. Hayat, who was one of the first statisticians to work in a nursing school and who has been very instrumental in introducing statistical methodology in nursing studies.

Most of the remaining time was spent “networking” a convenient term for meeting old friends in the statistical community.  This included my former graduate student, Isaac, my just graduated student, Frank, and many friends I met at school or during my career.  Chuck has met most of these people at one time or another, and came downtown for dinners and the occasional lunch.  I did not really do any sightseeing, except for walking many times through the restaurant district and 16th St. Mall. 

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Chuck has his own blog entry.

Sunday morning we headed back to Silverthorne, passing the traffic jam headed back to Denver.  It is lucky after all that I need to be in Denver next Sunday, so we will go back on Saturday when the route is less crowded.

Silverthorne is a very popular summer destination on Dillon Lake, the reservoir for Denver.  The water is piped under the continental divide to the city.  The dam has created lots of room for water sports.  We did not make reservations, so we have done a lot of moving camp — not a huge problem as the campsites here do not have hook-ups.

We spent Sunday afternoon sitting by our private beach on the lake near the town of Frisco, watching the mountains, boaters and bicyclists.   The sun was intense but there was a lovely cool breeze by the water.  We are taking it easy – Chuck because he likes to have the occasional day that is less busy and me because I am still a bit worried about the effects of altitude.

On Monday we moved to our second campsite, which is close to the town of Frisco.  We spent a lot of time doing practical things — filling up our freshwater reservoir, finding a place to empty our grey water reservoir, purchasing a few necessary items, and attempting to do some banking (a bit of a problem since apparently our bank has no branches west of Kansas City — a fact we wished we had known earlier).  In any case, once we were settled, we decided to enjoy the view of the lake and the mountains.

On Tuesday, we moved to our third campsite, which is beside campsite #2.  That accomplished, we (or actually Chuck) blew up the kayaks and we set out for the lake. 

A few minutes into our paddle, we saw a sailboat that had evidently grounded.  With none of the power boats going to the rescue, and since Chuck knows a thing or two about sailing, we decided to see if we could help.  Chuck moored his kayak to the sailboat, and I kept an eye on a child of about 8 who decided to abandon ship in favor of a paddleboard that was also moored to the sailboat.  The wind was really picking up fast.  As a result, when the boat was finally afloat, things happened fast.  The boat swung around, forcing Chuck’s kayak under the paddleboard and boat; the child scrambled onboard safely, while I bumped into Chuck’s kayak, forcing it further under the boat although with no adverse effects on me.

It was only after we righted the kayak, Chuck boarded and we waved goodbye to the sailor and son that we realized that we had a problem.  Chuck’s paddle, which was wedged into the kayak, had twisted enough to snap one of the plastic paddle blades.  As they say, no good deed goes unpunished.  Chuck was able to use the other end of the paddle like a canoe paddle and we made it back to our launch site against a very stiff headwind.  Fortunately, paddles are cheap compared to kayaks.

Wildflowers are blooming here, so that everywhere you look there are purple (in lots of shades) yellow and white blossoms.  As well, there are two prevalent grass species — one is grass green, the other is much bluer, with the blue shade really intensifying under some light conditions.  lt is really a beautiful spot.

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Wednesday we went searching for a new campsite and found the Pine Grove camping area, which does not take reservations.  We were happy to find that many sites were available — for up to 2 weeks.  However, I soon discovered I had site jealousy.  The camping area is just a parking lot.  On the left is the view from the site we got on Wednesday.  On the right is the view from the site we moved to on Thursday.  It was totally worth moving again!

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This area is a biking paradise.  There is a dirt trail that goes around much of the lake.  The folding bikes did well on the trail, but it was a bit nerve-racking trying to miss roots and rocks without falling into the lake.  After about 45 minutes, there was a cut-off to the paved trail into downtown Frisco.  Alternatively (and every time we went to Frisco thereafter) the paved trail goes the entire way and takes about 20 minutes.

Needless to say, in this summer and winter vacation area, it is a very touristy downtown, with lots of restaurants, hike/bike/ski gear shops and trendy clothing.  I went shopping for something to wear at the Joint Statistical Meetings next week (no luck) while Chuck headed for the bookstore.

It turns out that on Wednesdays the bookstore hosts a local musician in their coffee shop.  Chuck started chatting with him (before his set started) and we ended up staying for two hours.  The local guy, Randall, had invited two friends to play with him.  They played mostly 70s folk/country/western.  A lot of Randall’s friends showed up to make requests.  All in all, it was a lot of fun.  We biked back on the paved path against a strong headwind, but the threatened rain held off.

On Thursday we moved to our final campsite here, with a great view over the lack and mountains.  In the morning we tried out Chuck’s new kayak paddle.  Although it is an inexpensive one, it seems to be a better length for him than the old one, so he is happy with it.  The wind on the lake is very strong, so we are taking the precaution of always heading into the wind on our way out.  

Thursday evenings Frisco has music in the park. We biked in again for that.

By Friday morning we were surrounded by a very congenial set of other campers.  We spent quite a lot time chatting with people about life, camping, work, you name it.  Some of them will be staying for as long as possible, so we are considering returning here after our Denver stop. 

We had a very nice kayak trip around half the lake.  However, in the late afternoon it began to rain and we stuck around the campground.

We started Saturday with a kayak trip up the lake in the opposite direction.  We were thrilled to see several bald eagles, both overhead (which is common near State College) and also hanging out in the trees on of the islands.  We have never been so close to eagles in the wild.  They seemed quite undisturbed by quite kayakers and paddle boarders. We have better pictures from our second visit to Dillon, so I am not posting here.

We packed up and then headed to town to do laundry.  Usually we do a couple of loads a week at the campsite, but we were due to do a load when we left Blackhawk and then were at campgrounds with no laundry for a week.  In short, we probably had 5 or 6 loads — laundromats have parking and lots of machines so everything can be done in parallel. 

Frisco was really buzzing around noon on Saturday, and so things were a bit more complicated than planned.  For some reason, although we had already been to town twice and seen the laundromat both times, this time we could not find it.  We ended up moving the car 3 times.  We also had some issues in timing the laundry and lunch.  Of course in the end both got done.

Then we went into Silverthorne, as I needed some professional clothes for my conference in Denver.  We finally rolled into our campsite in West Denver around suppertime.  It is not beautiful, but it is convenient.  (It also has a great laundry facility – but who knew?)

July 17 – 22 Colorado

Western Kansas is flat prairie with wheat and corn fields as far as the eye can see.  No fracking wells.  Not surprisingly, eastern Colorado is much the same.  However, a few hours of driving brought us to rolling foothills and then Denver.

Considering that it was midday when we got to Denver, traffic was very dense.  However, just west of Denver, the traffic clears out and the road begins to climb.

We were attracted by a sign pointing to Buffalo Bill Cody’s grave and museum, so we cut off the road and climbed (by van) up aptly named Lookout Mountain.  From the top, there is a great view of Denver and of Golden (home of Colorado School of Mines). 

Buffalo Bill helped build the myth of the American West.  He was a scout, bison hunter, Pony Express rider and most famously, showman.  He famously staged enormous pageants of western life first in the US and Canada, and later in Europe, bringing with bison, horses, cowboys, sharp-shooters and entire families of Native Americans.  (It seems possible that the Pony Express, which was active for only 18 months, would not play such a big part in the myth of the west had Buffalo Bill not referred to it in his pageants.  Other famous names in the show included Annie Oakley, her husband Frank Butler, Wild Bill Hickok and Sitting Bull. 

Interestingly enough, Buffalo Bill was ahead of his time in many things.  He offered equal wages to his Indian and women employees.  He encouraged the audience to actually meet the families of the Indians as a means of encouraging empathy with the plight of the many tribes who had been evicted from their land.  He testified in favor of the Indians in the US courts.  And, as an employer of several talented women sharpshooters, he promoted enfranchisement for women.  He was also a conservationist who felt that hunting should be regulated.

Buffalo Bill’s father was from Toronto (Mississauga, to be exact) and he spent part of his early life there, although Bill was born in Iowa.  The family then moved to Fort Leavenworth, where their abolitionist activism put them in danger.  The father died when Bill was 11 from complications due to a knife attack from pro-slavery supporters.  As a result, Bill had to go to work to help support the family.  At this early stage in his life he participated on the US side in the Mormon Rebellion, a confrontation between the US government and the Mormon settlers.  This rebellion led directly to the formation of the Pony Express. 

He achieved a certain amount of fame due to novels and stories published about his adventures by Ned Buntline and later other writers.  He decided to exploit his fame by creating Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.  He later expanded it to include skilled horsemen (and women) from around the world.  This was quite a spectacle at the turn of the 20th century.   In 1901, a freight train crashed into the train carrying the show.  Although no human lives were lost, the loss of 110 horses and the sets created a financial loss from which the show did not recover, although it did do a European tour around 1907. 

He died in Denver, and apparently told friends and immediate family members that he wished to be buried on Lookout Mountain.  However, in his will, he stated that he wished to be buried in Cody, Wyoming.  This discrepancy has led to some controversy.

I note in passing that as was frequently the case in the “good old days” 2 of Bill’s 4 children died in childhood and only one survived him.

From Lookout Mountain, we continued a few miles to the KOA in Blackhawk.  This KOA was pleasant enough, although it primarily serves the casinos in Center City.  The main thing, from our perspective, is that it was 15F cooler than any place we had been further west.

We used Blackhawk as our anchor for exploring the local mountains and mining towns.  Although highway 70 goes through many of the main towns, we started off on Wednesday by taking the infamous Virginia Canyon Road (VCR) to Idaho Springs, the largest town in the area and the origin of the Colorado Gold Rush.  VCR follows the rim of Virginia Canyon, a very steep and deep canyon.  On this first attempt to traverse the road, we followed Google Maps, which led us down Two Brothers Road (named after the Two Brothers Mine).  This is a very rough and very steep gravel road that quickly descends to the canyon floor and Idaho Springs.  On Friday, we did the traverse properly along the hard-packed dirt road that clings to the top and sides of the canyon.  Most of the road is 1.5 lanes, with blind hairpin curves and no guardrails.  Much of the roadside is so steep (and treeless) that a car going over the edge would plunge several hundred feet to the bottom (and the downhill side of the road was also eroded in some spots).  The views were breath-taking, but I don’t think we would do this again.

At one point, we met a hapless tourist with a rental RV, stuck with his rear wheels in the ditch and his vehicle at 90 degrees to the road.  He had decided not to take the road, and had picked a pull-out to do a 3 point turn, not realizing that on the uphill side of the road was a sandfilled ditch.  We doubted that the could accelerate out of the ditch without putting his front wheels over the other side of the road (the scary side, although it was a bit less steep and better treed there).  In any case, the pullout was wide enough for us (and others) to get around him, so we left him there to wait for a tow truck.  I suspect there is a tow company in Idaho Springs that subsists on pulling tourists off VCR.

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The Colorado Rockies are in bloom. I have never seen so many wildflowers. I will be posting lots of flower pictures in the coming posts.

On Wednesday we stopped in Idaho Springs and walked through the historic downtown.  We then walked along Clear Creek, a river that is heavily used for white water rafting.  We watched rafts, had a look at a historic waterwheel that had been used as part of a mining operation, and looked at the many beautiful blooming wildflowers.

We then drove to the historic town of Georgetown and walked through its downtown.  Georgetown is also home to one of the largest bighorn sheep herds in the area.  We stopped at the viewing area but were disappointed. 

However, on Thursday, we stopped again and were rewarded by sighting 2 families of grazing sheep.  Binoculars are required for this exercise.

When we returned to the campground, we were surprised to see that our immediate neighbors were a family of 4 with 3 dogs in a camper van.  We could not see how they all fit in!  Actually, they had just dropped a son at the Airforce Academy, so there had been 5 of them in the van.  It turned out that this was a conversion van – a regular van that the father of the family had converted for camping.  The interior was all seating and sleeping — no kitchen or bathroom.  They had done a great job.

On Thursday, we took the VCR to Idaho Springs and then took a brief look at Silver Plume, one of the old mining towns. It is tiny, and seems to be hanging on due to the tourist trade. It is pretty though, with Clear Creek (the rafting creek) running through it and flourishing gardens.

We then took I70 through the Eisenhower Tunnel, which takes you to the other side of the continental divide, and into the towns of Silverthorne and Dillon.  Silverthorne services many of the local ski areas.  Dillon Lake, which is a a reservoir for Denver (via a pipeline under the divide) is very pretty and ringed by bicycle trails.  We took a long and lovely bike ride around the lake, and then drove around trying to find a campsite that was available for the weekend.  With no luck on the latter, we drove back to Blackhawk, stopping at the sheep viewing station to see the bighorns.

Our camper neighbors had been replaced by Travato neighbors!  This was really great, as they had the same model although an earlier year.  We spent quite a bit of time discussing upgrades and improvements.  In particular, they had some interesting ideas about how to reduce the noise from the airconditioner.

We were rather worried about our lack of reservations for the weekend, as all campgrounds seemed to be full. 

However, on one of our stops in Idaho Springs we had seen an advertisement for a bluegrass music festival.  Finding it on-line, we discovered that they also had camping for small RVs, so we decided to go.

Friday morning we took VCR to Idaho Springs and then found the festival, which was being held in the town recreational fields.  The RV camping was just one of the parking lots, which had been set aside for that purpose. 

The festival did not start until 5, so we took the bicycle path from the parking lot, under I70 and back into town.  Although I had been perfectly fine during the long (and somewhat hilly) ride in Silverthorne, in about 2 minutes I was totally unable to proceed.  I had to sit for about 5 minutes before I could even walk my bike to the top of the hill.  I attribute this to altitude.  Although my general stance is that I am actually a teenager with a prematurely wrinkled face, I have decided that altitude and age do not mix well —  I am therefore being careful not to over-exert.

Once we got to the top of the bicycle path, the remainder of the route was pleasant.  The town has a reasonable Chinese restaurant, and the Visitor Center hosts a very good museum about the silver and gold mines that were in the area.  We enjoyed both, as well as a side-trip to a grocery store to purchase breakfast foods we could enjoy in our non-electric campsite. 

The bluegrass festival was quite different from the two we attended in Centre Hall.  Firstly, it was much smaller — starting about 5 on Friday and ending at midnight on Saturday, with at most a few hundred in the audience.  Secondly, it was a more mixed crowd both in age and ethnicity.  Although we met a number of people from the local towns, we had the impression that most of the crowd drove in from Denver. 

There were a lot of families with young children.  There were no Confederate flags (or any kinds of political symbols, unless you consider tie-dye clothing to be political).  The festival sponsors included a local brewery and a local cidery that had contributed their product and staff.  There were frequent exhortions to eat drink and be merry, particularly to drink beer and cider.  We did not see or hear any jamming with or among the audience, although apparently late Saturday night there were jam parties.  (It was cold and rainy, so we did not explore that option.)

The music was also very different, although the typical bluegrass instruments were used.  Firstly, no gospel (and no talk about religion, except the religion of music).  Secondly there was a lot of fusion music – I particularly like something that they were calling “gypsy” style, that sounded to me like klezmer music played on bluegrass instruments.  There was also fusion with rock, country etc.

One aspect of the festival we had not seen before was fire performance.  This was a group of people I would have to call jugglers, who performed with flaming hula hoops, balls, batons, etc.  This was quite amazing (and not advertised). 

Except for breakfast, we ate festival food for two days.  Pretty good!

On Saturday afternoon the weather turned rainy.  Despite thunderstorms, the music continued.  The kids were fun to watch — although the adults all huddled under the tents, the kids ran around in the rain and the mud and had a blast.  At least one parent came prepared — I saw her son in at least 3 change of clothes (and at last sighting he looked like he had just emerged from the red swamp).

We had a nice chat with one of the festival volunteers, a local woman about my age who loves bluegrass music.

On Saturday afternoon, we were amazed to see that another Travato had parked beside us in the parking lot.  They turned out to be a PSU graduate and his wife.  They live in Florida now, but lived most of their married lives in Boulder, where he taught personal finance.  One of their sons is a bass player in one of the bands.  Once again, information and suggestions for living in the vans were exchanged.  They had purchased their van 2nd hand and were having transmission problems.  Fortunately, that is a van problem, not an RV problem, which makes it easier to find a place to handle repairs.

Of the 3 women we met in the past 3 days, 2 worked in elementary schools and have taken early retirement due to the “evolution” (devolution?) of school policies.  One was a school cook.  She said that the problem with food provided in the schools is not the food, but the amount of time that the children are given to eat.  They are now expected to take school breakfast back to the classroom with them, where they seldom get time to eat before recess.  And lunch time is only 20 minutes, which includes the time in line to get the food.  As well, much of the food is now packaged for freshness — but the youngest children cannot open the packages themselves and so usually do not eat it.  The other was a teacher and school librarian.  She had to give up the latter when the state added certification to the librarian position, but gave up teaching due to the emphasis on standardized tests.  It seems we are failing at nurturing both body and intellect.

With temperature forecasts for the Kansas City to Denver route in the high 90s and low 100s all week, we decided to head for the hills.  We are not going to be doing much hiking, biking or kayaking in this weather.  However, we are stopping en route when things are sufficiently interesting.

How hot is it? For years I have been buying reading glasses at the Dollar Store. I have never had an issue with the frames. Now the tortoise shell design is literally peeling off the frames. (OK, I know most of the US has been suffering the same heat wave.) We are certainly going to take advantage of our mobility to get away from the heat.

Fort Leavenworth is just beyond the Kansas border.  We decided to go have a look at the Frontier Army Museum.  It turns out that this museum and other tourist attractions are actually on the army base, which is possibly best known for its military prison.  In any case, to see the museum, we had to check in at the Visitor Center.  It seemed a bit intimidating, but we were already there, so we proceeded. One thing of note: you need special permission to visit the base if you are not a US citizen.

We stopped first at the Buffalo Soldier Monument, which is part of a memorial to African Americans in the US army, starting with the Buffalo Soldiers in the the Civil War.  I was aware of their role, but not the role of an African-American WAC unit in WW2.  I was surprised to learn that there was no monument to African American soldiers at Fort Leavenworth, where the first African American troups were initially trained, until this monument was dedicated by Colin Powell in 1992.

We then visited the Frontier Army Museum, which is quite large.  Fort Leavenworth was the first army fort west of the Mississippi and was built in 1827.  One thing that struck me going through the museum is how recently the west was settled.  Displacement and murder of Native Americans continued right through the end of the 1800’s.  (I am not talking about later attempts to separate native peoples from their culture.)  The US/Mexico border was not fully established until 1884, and even then, shifts in the course of the Rio Grande changed the border.  Since this is an Army Museum, there was a lot of discussion of the various wars over the western territories.  Another interesting aspect of the museum is a large collection of army and settler vehicles, from the requisite Connestoga wagon to buggies and sleds used by the officers, supply wagons, ambulances, fire trucks, etc.  There was also a display of the evolution of the musket firing mechanism.  All in all, this museum probably needs about 8 hours to be fully appreciated.  We consider ourselves “museumed out” after about 2 hours.  The town also has a carousel museum which would interest me, but there is only so much we can handle in a day.

We camped for the night in a tiny campground that is literally on the ramp to I70.  It was easy to leave in the morning.  It is hard for me to understand the economics of a place this small (24 sites), as they still need staff.

It turned out we were only a few miles from Abilene, home of the Eisenhower Library and Museum.  We decided that we have had enough of historical museums for awhile.  However, the Greyhound (Dog) Hall of Fame was right across the road and we took a look.  We were quite astonished to learn that greyhound racing is one of the most popular spectator sports in the US, and also that its origins are very recent. 

The dogs are at their best for racing between 18 months and 4 years, which explains the large effort to find adoptive homes for retired racers.  The history of the breed and of the sport were quite interesting.  However, I could not help but feel that raising dogs in this industrialized way is akin to the “puppy milll”.  The young dogs get a lot of attention to their physical health, growth and training.  But they do not have a lot of human attention and socialization.

It was a bit early for lunch when we were done, so we continued on our way.  Kansas has large stretches of farm and fracking country, with few towns.  We ended up getting sandwiches at what appeared to be an isolated gas station.  However, there was a constant stream of customers.

In this part of the state, the country is rolling but monotonous.  There is lots of scrubland, with clusters of cattle — most close to or wallowing in small ponds.  (Did I mention that it is extremely hot?)    There are some fields of soy and wind turbines.  We are seeing a lot of fracking pumps scattered in fields that are otherwise devoted to cattle or soy.

We decided to stop in Hays to see the Sternberg Museum of Natural History.  This museum appears to be affiliated with the Fort Hays State University, the third largest state university in Kansas (and another university we have never heard of).  It is a terrific museum. 

It is mostly devoted to fossils, but also has a very nice exhibit of live rattlesnakes (in terrariums), a small but well-designed mineralogy section and a large panorama with full-size dinosaur robots.  This is another museum that would merit a second visit.

After Hays, we are beginning to see fields that look golden. The wheat harvest is a bit late this year, due to a very wet spring, but according to the internet wheat is being harvested now and there is a good crop.  There is also more corn.  Although it is very hot, there is plenty of moisture.  There are a lot of old-fashioned wind pumps bringing water to the surface, but the creeks and ponds already look very full.

We decided to spend the night at Goodland.  Once we arrived, we decided that it is an ideal spot for a rest (despite the heat).  Our campsite was tucked in between some trees and a cabin, so we had shade and privacy.  The campground has a pool (which Chuck used) and some nice chainsaw carvings done by the previous owner. And it is just half a mile from the town’s main attractions (the world’s “largest easel” and Van Gogh replica and a museum).  It put us right on the time zone border which is a bit odd.  Our phones were on Central Time, but the town and campground are on Mountain Time.

The Van Gogh is one of those bizarre attractions that make this trip endlessly fascinating.  Unlike Casey, IL, this was not a local idea.  In 1996 a Canadian artist and teacher,  Cameron Cross, decided to create a huge copy of a Van Gogh sunflower in Altona, Manitoba, “the sunflower capital of Canada”.  Since then, he has done 2 more – one in Australia and the other in Goodland.  Goodland is the heart of the sunflower industry in Kansas, the Sunflower State, so having the painting here makes sense.   With wall murals so popular these days, it is not even close to being the world’s largest painting, but the “canvas” mounted on the easel is a different experience. 

On Monday, we enjoyed our campsite until the heat became too intense.  We then biked over to the Van Gogh and the High Plains Museum.  The museum is a work in progress.  It has a lot of farm and household equipment that is not labelled, for example.  However, it also had a lot of unique artifacts such as different types of stoves (coal, gasoline and kerosene) a very ornate furnace and, the oddest of all, an early helicopter. 

The helicopter is a very odd story.  A local mechanic became obsessed with manned flight.  Upon watching children playing with a whirly-gig, he conceived of an idea for a flying machine.  Another friend who was also very mechanical became intrigued and started working with him.  Neither of them were aware of prior attempts (e.g. de Vinci) to utilize this principle.  Some time into the project, many of the workers in the local machine shop (Goodland was a center of railroad repairs for the Rock Island Line of folksong legend) became interested and began to assist with making parts.  Finally they had a model they thought would work, but at 400 pounds, it needed a substantial motor (actually 2 motors).  They convinced the locals to buy shares in a company to develop the machine, and in time announced a working prototype. 

However, they did not deal with the trickiest part of helicopter design – flight control – although they did realize that the body of the plane would end up rotating around the rotor.    There are various accounts about the demise of the helicopter.  Whatever the case, the inventors were unsuccessful in attracting further investment and eventually gave up on the effort – not before filing the first US patent for a helicopter.

We continued into town by bicycle, past the railroad tracks and grain elevators.   There was not much activity.  The main street is paved with brick, which is rather tough on the bicycles, especially as some were not in good repair.  The town is laid out on a very strict grid, so we returned to the campsite via residential streets.