Timber Creek Campground, Rocky Mountain National Park

During our trip we stayed at a lot of nice campgrounds and a few backcountry sites. When we stayed at the campgrounds, for the most part we were there to sleep. As soon as we would get up, we would get in the car and to start the day. When we got to our destination, we would brush our teeth in the parking lot after eating during the drive. Usually we were back to our sites before dark and we would eat supper at the picnic table. 

My favorite campground was Game Lodge in Custer State Park. There is a free campground in the Badlands called Sage Creek that I also loved  a lot. My least favorite campground was called Grizzly, and it was right near Mt Rushmore. It was uncomfortable and buggy. 

However, a close second to Game Lodge is Timber Creek. First off, apparently Timber Creek used to be a wooded. However the infestation of the Mountain Pine Beetle killed off the trees. So the campground was cleared. Of course we had never seen the campground in its original glory. So to us, it was fine. There was plenty of evidence of the missing trees. The ground was littered with brush and twigs. This worked for us, Laurie liked having campfires, because of these twigs, we didn't have to buy firewood. 

The campground had many reasons to be memorable and deserves a post all its own.

Our tent started leaking in Rocky Mountain. This wouldn't have mattered in the desert, but in the mountains, there were thunderstorms everyday. We had to buy a new tent (the blue one in the back). Before we trashed our old tent, we took a picture of us next to it. I have a tendency to get a bit sentimental with material things that I have shared memories with. (Did you see me go on and on about my old car?)

A bunch of elk routinely came into the campground. They ate the ash out of fire pits because of the minerals left behind. The elk with the blue collar has been treated with a contraceptive. The elk population has exploded and the park is experimenting with non lethal ways to control the population

Within a thirty minute period one morning, we had the herd of elk come through along with this cow moose

...and her baby boy

And if that weren't enough this mule deer came through. Mind you, this is right in the campground. Right along the campsites road and tents. 

If you walk behind the trees in the back left of the first picture, you come to this. This is the beginning of the mighty Colorado River. Although those trees look far away, its only because the tents and ourselves are so close. The walk from my tent to this spot was only a minute. From the closest campsite, maybe fifty feet.

 The river was loaded with small brook trout. One afternoon while DJ was fishing, five elk came by. DJ was standing on the bank fishing his fly rod. The elk crossed the river on both sides of him. He was paralyzed by the experience. He was surrounded by elk on all sides not more than a few arm's lengths away. He still talks about it as one of the most exhilarating experiences of his life

Sandhill Crane, Bike Rides, Carp, and running

Today was very nice in southern  New England. After work I decided to go to Sachuest and play with my new camera and photograph deer with it. Unfortunately, I was not the only person with this idea. The parking lot was full. Many cars were driving in, and looping back out. I decided to kill some time by going to Sandy Point Beach and wait until about 4 pm, when I knew the parking lot would be less crowded. While sitting in my  car I got extremely tired. I wrapped up my sweatshirt and used it as a blanket to rest my eyes. While sitting there, I realized I was burning precious (warm) daylight. So I came up with a plan B. I went toTiverton to Seapowet. Either I was going to see the continuing Sandhill Crane or go for a walk a.t Emily Rueker Wildlife Sanctuary.

As luck would have it, the Sandhill was around and fairly close to the road. I sat in my car (so not to scare it) and photographed it for half an hour. Then I drove around and saw some hawks. I was quite satisfied with my efforts. I decided to call it an afternoon. I went home and went for a long overdue run. It was nice to run in a T-shirt.

Meanwhile, as I was doing all that., my son was off on a twenty mile bike ride. While he was pedaling, he came across my friends Dave and Tom. They were carp fishing and had caught a couple. I guess it was a productive late winter day for a lot of people!

Sandhill on the left. On the right at the top of the reeds is a Northern Harrier hawk flying

Rocky Mountain National Park

View near Mills Lake. 

I spent the better part of the last two weeks looking for a car. I obviously spent some nights writing posts. However, I was so stressed out, I am very glad it is over. I went from a small SUV, my Santa Fe that got a decent 22 mpg. I now own a Toyota Corolla that now gets about 32 miles/ gallon. Hopefully, I will enjoy this vehicle for the next ten years as much as I did my Santa Fe.



These two posts about Rocky Mountain National Park will conclude my trip in 2010 to the west. I don't remember if we spent four or five days there. We did a lot of short hikes but nothing crazy. We spent every night in Timber Creek Campground. Interestingly, the singer Jewel and her husband was at the campground and national park a few days before us. The campground is on the west side of the park. We spent a lot of time on the east side of the park so we did a lot of driving. Doing a lot of driving in a park is not like a long commute to work. even doing the same forty mile route everyday is fun. We saw bull elk with giant racks and awesome mountain vistas. Trust me, it never got old.

There is a lot of wildlife in Rocky Mountain, He saw tons of elk and mule deer. We saw a moose, coyote, and a few pikas. The one animal we did not see were bighorn sheep. Of course DJ and I had seen plenty in the Badlands and Yellowstone. However, Laurie had not seen any. I had hoped we could find her some, but no such luck.

There are hundreds of miles of trails, but a couple days is not near enough to see much of it. I think the longest hike we did was about seven miles. One of the hikes we did was to Mills Lake. On the way to the lake we passed a pretty cascade named Alberta Falls.

Alberta Falls

DJ with a Gray Jay on his hand

Laurie with the Jay

Mills Lake

Above Timberline Rocky Mountains

Bye my friend, thanks for the memories

Here it is at a campsite at Deer Mountain Campground in the
Connecticut Lakes region of New Hampshire in 2014

Today I finally had to buy a new vehicle for the first time in a decade. The cost to get the major repairs done are just not worth it for the year and miles to my vehicle. Without question I am sadder to be getting rid of this old friend than I am happy to be getting a "new to me" vehicle (2010 Corolla that gets 32.1 mpg, thank you very much) 

So sad that I could have driven my new car off the lot tonight, but told the dealer I would pick it up after work tomorrow because I still had stuff to clean out, even though I have it ninety percent cleaned out. 

My old friend has 327,000 miles on it, all but the first 64k are from me. I bought it 2 years old for 9200 not including my trade. We have been everywhere together. It carried me safely on my big trip out west in 2010. It's been to Acadia National Park, Washington D.C. and the Outer Banks. It has carried me, my kayak, and camping gear numerous times to New Hampshire. Because of its reliability, I have not had a car payment in eight years. I woud not have been able to do those fun things with an expensive car payment or a car that I did not trust.

Since it is basically worth nothing, it will unceremoniously be hauled away to scrap yard. It seems like a little tribute and a couple pictures is the least I can do.

There is no question this car has seen more than its share
of great scenery, wildlife and America

Thank you, you will be missed.

Blackwoods Campground, Acadia National Park,
 2011

Arches National Park

After we left Zion Narrows, we drove half the night to reach a small BLM campground outside of Arches National Park and Moab, UT. We set up our tents in total darkness, so not to wake the other campers. When we woke up, we went to Arches National Park.

Arches is a small park. We had one day and saw 70 percent. With two days, you could see everything including the best back country hike that we just did not have time for ( a loop hike to the Marching Men). The national park has the largest concentration of natural arches in the world.

This fin is known as the Three Gossips

We got extremely lucky, the day we went it was about 90 degrees, which is considered on the cool side in the desert during the summer.

We went through the entrance gate and went to the Visitor Center. We watched a short video about how arches are made. They are made by wind, rain, and gravity erosion, where as natural bridges are made by water going through it. Then we went out looking for arches. Besides arches, there are a ton of rock formations most of them have cool names. I tried to write them down so we would remember what we were looking at when we looked at pictures.

Sheep Rock

Balance Rock

Double Arch

Skyline Arch, that is DJ under it

Landscape Arch, this one will probably crash down in our lifetime.
In places it is only six feet wide, but it is 290 feet. Almost the
length of a football field!

This is Delicate Arch, the most famous arch in
Utah. It is the arch on the Utah license plate

Around late afternoon we left the park. Laurie couldn't take being dirty anymore so we got our tent from the campground and she sprang for a motel. We all took a shower and then went to Pizza Hut. DJ and I wanted to explore some more but Laurie didn't. She stayed at the motel to do laundry. DJ and I did a short hike on a trail named Park Ave. So named because on both sides rock fins rise up like skyscrapers in New York City. It was a really pretty hike that evening and I am glad we did it.

Park Ave.

On a side note, the motel in Moab, UT that we stayed at was the only time I slept in a bed or a building for the entire seven weeks. I highly advice going to Arches for the scenic wonders. For a tourist, one day is fine, but for a hiker, I would advise two days, to do the Towering Men and also the Devils Garden loops.

Rhode Island's Serengeti

It is more than a stretch to compare any wild area in Rhode Island to the Serengeti Plain of Tanzania.
However, in such a small state such as Rhode Island, all of the best wildlife hotspots are within an hour drive of each other. Of these hotspots, arguably the best place to see wildlife in Sachuest National Wildlife Refuge.

I have wrote about Sachuest on numerous occasions. By no means is Sachuest the best place to go birding. However, it is a very good place to bird at all season's of the year. It does have the largest wintering harlequin duck populations in the state. What makes Sachuest special is the large deer population, the variety of birds, and the chance to see owls.

Today, Laurie and I went to Sachuest after work. There was a snowy owl spotted there on Saturday, and I really wanted to see it. As soon as we got out of the car we spotted three deer near the parking lot. We walked towards the ocean and the Island Rocks. Of course, we saw the usual assortment of ducks including horned grebes, and greater scaup. When we got to the ocean I noticed a white dot on the largest rock. Laurie had the binoculars and she confirmed the white dot was not seagull shit, but the Snowy Owl.

We watched the owl for fifteen minutes. It was so far out that pictures were not going to be great. None the less, we enjoyed the views through binoculars and the spotting scope.

After we left the owl, we headed south toward the fields. I heard a rustling in the brush assumed it was a mouse. When I spotted where it came from I saw that it was a mink. The mink ended up

The only photo I got of the mink

walking parallel to the trail for about 40 feet only about ten feet from us. He would scurry a few feet then stop and look at us. Then go a few feet and smell something. All in all, we watched him for about 2 minutes. Again, we got good views, but since he was in the brush and constantly moving, I was not going to get an award winning photo.

A little past the mink we came across a dozen deer on a ridge. They were out in the open and we watched them for a little  while. It had been a great day. But the deer kept coming. Closer to the car another herd of ten deer were feeding in the last field near the visitor center. They were much closer to us and I got some decent photos.

As we approached our car, Laurie noticed a bird flying in the field. She put the binoculars on it. It was the other target species we were hoping to see, Short Eared Owl. It was flying fast and we could barely get a look, but that was what we were watching. I was pumped. After we saw the owl, it was time to go home

On our way home, while driving down the road, two turkeys were perched in a tree.

Bryce Canyon National Park

Whether you'r loving or hating these western posts, I only have couple (probably 4) left. Personally, I have enjoyed this trip down memory lane. Not only have I gotten a chance to relive great memories, but putting these posts together has been fun figuring out which pictures to include or not to include.

As I mentioned in my Zion post, we did a day trip to Bryce Canyon instead of a couple days so we could do the Zion Narrows. I don't regret the decision at all. I do wish we would have had more time at Bryce since the scenery is spectacular. The national park is thin running north and south. Bryce isn't really a canyon. It is more like the eroded side of a plateau that drops into another plateau ( Grand Staircase National Monument). The red rock canyon formations are gorgeous.

There is one main road that goes down the center of the park. Like Zion, there are buses. Unlike Zion, you can choose to use your own car. The buses only go about half way down the road. The short hike we wanted to do was at the very end of the road, so we used my car.

When you reach the national park boundary there is a field that has a small prairie dog town. The prairie dogs from previous posts were of black tailed prairie dogs. The ones that live in the park are the endangered  Utah Prairie Dogs. We were happy to stop and see them for a couple minutes

After we got past the cute little rodents we stopped all the scenic view points. We did not have a lot of time, so we couldn't take any of the great hikes down into the formations. Although a couple of the hikes in this park are considered some of the best in the southwest, I was okay with missing them. So much of this park can be seen from the road, it was an easy pill to swallow.

                                                  Rock Formation

                                       Natural Bridge

                                        Golden Mantle Ground Squirrel

The short hike we did was the Bristlecone Pine Loop. I love seeing the 2000 year old trees So that was the hike we did in the short time we had. 

Interestingly, Ponderosa Pine, which is one of the dominant species in western forest, smells like vanilla or butterscotch. We had known this for about a month, but when Laurie got there, we made her smell the trees.

If you are hiker, two or three days would be enough to cover this park. There is a "top ten" hike in the Faityland Loop. If you have more time there is the 23 mile Under the Rim trail. If I ever get back there I'll do the Fairyland Loop ( I believe it is around 8 miles). However, if your not in condition to do serious hiking, this is a tourist friendly park that can be seen in a day. 

One last note. To stay at Zion to do the Narrows hike meant I had to give up my reservations at the Bryce campground and eat the deposit. We went to the campground while we visited the park. My site would have been the most uncomfortable of the trip. There was no tent pad. The site was on a hill that was at least a 40 degree angle. It would have sucked. We dodged a bullet on that one.