Saturday October 14th. I've been home just over 2 weeks and the heat and humidity have been nasty. However the great news is my granddaughter Ariel has a new baby sister and  I have a new granddaughter, Alice, who is 2 weeks old today.

Since I failed repeatedly to be able to upload my photos as I've done on past trips I've decided to create a new Blog of my trip and embed and link to photos while providing some rambling commentary with occasional rants and raves. I will try to avoid political comments but in todays situation I can offer no guarantees since there are times (almost daily right now) when extreme stupidity, lack of moral values by our Leaders and zero Integrity needs to be acknowledged! What does an Alcoholic suffer with when they quit cold turkey?...................the DT's. America is going through the DT's! (that's 1)

The point of this trip was to leave the heat and humidity of a Florida summer behind and head for the mountains of New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming with a side trip(big side trip!) to Iowa and northern Minnesota. I achieved my goal and more. It relates to the title of my Blog, My 4 layer Summer. Once I was above 7000 feet I rarely had a day at or above 80 degrees and the lows ranged from the 30's to 40's with my lowest being 32 degrees on August 15th in the Big Horn mountains of northern Wyoming. As a result my typical attire was a Tshirt, a long sleeve flannel shirt, a hooded sweatshirt(Orioles), and a down vest. My 4 layers.

So I'm going to immerse myself into my memories and attempt to recreate my experiences. I had some very creative moments on the trip and thought of how I would record the events of the day but I failed to take the time to turn on the laptop and record my thoughts. So much for all the cute and witty things I thought of, those brain cells are probably long gone.

I left home June 18th with the same basic plan and mindset of my previous trips.......drive like hell, push yourself and the equipment for 3 days and get to the mountains ASAP. That idea has worked well in the past but I discovered after the 2nd day that my ass was whupped and a slower pace would have been more appropriate now that I'm 65. Lesson learned, you're retired dummy slow down!

When I left, the area I was headed for and through, Texas and New Mexico, were having very hot weather for June and my first real camping destination was to be Bandelier National Monument a little north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. They were forecasting 95 to 100 for the days I had planned there and it would be a no-electricity campsite and therefore no air conditioning  and I was there to avoid a hot summer so I changed plans and headed about 2 hours north of Santa Fe up into the mountains of northern New Mexico at a campground I knew of at 9400 feet, Hopewell Lake. The days were high 70's and nites in the 40's but going to that altitude without some acclimation time can lead to issues. That began a stretch of about 8 weeks where I suffered some of the effects of altitude sickness. Poor appetite and lack of quality sleep was my biggest problem but the first resulted in some nice weight loss and I'll take that any way I can get it.

Hopewell Lake,NM

One of my goals for this trip was to do some night sky photography and I had bought a how to book.  The campsite at Hopewell Lake turned out to offer the best chance at night sky shots of the entire trip and I got a few shots of the Milky Way and hopefully one of them will be on my wall here at home soon. The difference in the color is due to changing the light temperature setting on my Canon EOS DSLR.  I can't wait to see how the shot looks blown up, hopefully minimal star movement will show. The exposure time is under 20 seconds to keep star movement to a minimum.

Milky Way, Hopewell Lake Campground, New Mexico

Milky Way, Hopewell Lake Campground, New Mexico

From there I went to Chaco Canyon(Culture) in New Mexico, the site of the Chacoan communities that thrived in the area from around 850 to 1150 A.D. and the area was a trading hub for the Southwest. The area is and was very dry and hot and not very hospitable for habitation but their communities grew and they were noted for the great houses they built and their architectural style. They used a mortar to join the stone they used yet there is not enough natural water in the area to account for the extensive building they did. Archeologists have reported the smell of ammonia in the excavations leading them to believe the builders utilized their own urine to mix the mortar. The heat and dryness were intense there.

June 30th...................Mesa Verde National Park campground Colorado. It's cooler here, I know this campground well but they added WiFi since I was here last, very unusual for a National Park campground. Turned out I would need that access within 24 hours to find myself a hospital due to extreme pain for over 24 hours that I thought could be my Appendix acting up.  So Sunday July 2nd off I went camper and all to the hospital and walked in with a travel bag of clothes and such expecting to be admitted. They finally decided I most likely had passed or was passing a gallstone. They wanted to keep me overnite but I passed and headed to my next campsite 15 miles away and was there for 5 days and got over the gall bladder issue. Why didn't I stay in the hospital? The admission would have been for observation and Medicare treats that as outpatient services and my expenses would have been significant, that's one of Medicares gotchas. It would have been at least a grand out of my pocket.

So that added a new experience in my extended trips.............once is enough(I hope), been there done that.

I spent the next 40 days in Colorado in numerous locations all above 7000 feet. I suffered from the effects of the altitude the entire time and that would continue in Wyoming with morning nausea and a lack of appetite while sleeping poorly. An effective diet though. The days were pleasant and the nights cool, usually with lows in the 40's and 30's. About the time I arrived in Colorado so did the North American monsoon when moisture from the Gulf of California and the eastern Pacific ocean move into the Southwest. I experienced afternoon rains many of the 40 days in Colorado. I had planned a good bit of hiking in the Rockies at high altitude, many times above 10000 feet but had problems due to the altitude, the steepness of the trails and my heart condition which resulted in my having to abort more than one hike. That was disappointing considering the destinations I was going for in high mountain meadows at the peak of wildflower season in the Rockies.  I still completed many hikes in spectacular locations. I'll include a link to some posted photos at the end of my rambling and you'll see what I mean.

near Lizard Head Pass southwest Colorado

I spent time near Durango, Telluride, Gunnison, Crested Butte, Lake City,  Leadville, Rocky Mt. Nat'l Park and Steamboat Springs with numerous side trips. Each of these spots has beautiful scenery and I have special memories from each spot. I'd been to many of the locations before and wouldn't hesitate to return again. The mountains of Southwest Colorado near Telluride are known as the San Juans and they are high and steep and offer great views and hiking such as the Lizard Head Pass area shown above. I really like the Gunnison/Crested Butte area which is further north and east. About 30 miles northeast of Gunnison is an area known as Taylor Park. It sits at 10000 feet and the drive up follows the Taylor River then suddenly you're up in a huge valley which is Taylor Park and also contains the Taylor Park reservoir. I've been here before but wanted to return and camp at a National Forest site overlooking the valley and reservoir. I spent 5 days exploring the area and marveling at the views from my campsite. I took a few trips over to Crested Butte while there enjoying the town and especially the wildflowers in the nearby mountains, I was there at peak time for them.

Rocky Mountain Wildflowers

view from my campsite and the Taylor Park reservoir

Leadville is also an area I find quite enjoyable and I camped along Turquoise Lake for almost a week. It's just a few miles out of town and offers great fishing and hiking. It's also at 10000 feet so the evenings are chilly even in late July. The photos of Hummingbirds and the beautiful Bucks with nice racks are from Hahns Peak Lake CG north of Steamboat Springs, Co. I spent weeks trying to get a good photo of a Hummingbird. Those in the Rockies are much bigger than what I see here in north Florida. I had a red blanket I used almost daily while sitting outside and they were attracted to it and would hover near me briefly which means no more than 5 seconds. It was very hard to get a good focus or exposure since there wasn't any fixed object they would be on. I took at least 100 shots trying to get them. It wasn't unusual to have multiple flybys each day. 

Turquoise Lake near Leadville,Co

After Colorado I went north into Wyoming continuing my high mountain camping. My first stop in Wyoming was only about 20 miles north of Colorado and southwest of Laramie in the Medicine Bow mountains in the small community of Ryan Park along the Snowy Range scenic byway. While there I visited the Rendezvous Lodge in Ryan Park which has a Cabin and 3 Lodge rooms for rent and a small dining room with good food. The place is small but is probably the biggest commercial business in Ryan Park. One of my better stories of the trip occurred there one evening when I decided to have dinner there. As I arrived another gentlemen was entering with me and we struck up a conversation as we each grabbed a table. A few minutes later 4 other folks joined him and I soon learned it was his Mom, Dad and 2 brothers. As we conversed the Dad asked if I was familiar with Battery Warehouse and I was having shopped online at their site prior to leaving in June. They are the family who owns it based out of Baltimore close to where I lived for my years. They've had the business for over 25 years and the parents are retired and 2 of the sons who reside near Baltimore run the business and one of them is a big Orioles fan so we had lots to talk about. They own a vacation home in Ryan Park and are there frequently so I asked for a recommendation on what to order. The Dad related a story of one of their friends who has a home in the area, the CEO of Marriott Corp. He said a few years ago the CEO's Bday was coming up and his wife wanted to know what he wanted as a gift and he said "a Rendezvous Lodge burger" so they flew to Wyoming and he had one! So did I based on that and it was great. Good people, food and conversation that night.  I also learned the parents spend a few months every Winter in Key Colony Beach on the north end of Marathon in the Keys, I hope their place survived Hurricane Irma. I have a bad story from there as well. My F150's transmission started slipping out of gear there and I wondered if I would make it home without major repairs. I did but it is still slipping occasionally and will need to be fixed soon.

Snowy Range near Ryan Park, Wyoming

I then proceeded north into the Big Horn mountains of northern Wyoming just west of Buffalo, Wyoming. I've been there before and they are some of the most beautiful mountains I've been in. On August 15th I was camping at West Tensleep Lake in the Cloud Peak Wilderness area at 9400 feet and that morning at 6am I went outside and noticed my truck covered in ICE, it was 32 degrees and a nearby mountaintop had fresh snow on it. A few days later at another nearby campground I watched the Solar eclipse in a 98% total area. It was a cloudless sunny day and at the peak of the eclipse it hardly dimmed, I was surprised and disappointed.

West Tensleep Lake

meadow next to campsite where I viewed the eclipse

While at West Tensleep Lake I met a family from the nearby town of Buffalo. One evening the Mom came by my site (only 10 sites in the campground) and asked if I had any Ketchup. They had forgotten it and were having hotdogs and she said their 3 kids would not forgive them for not having some. I had a bottle and off it went. A few hours later the Dad brought it back and he was wearing an FSU sweatshirt. Yep, he went to FSU about 15 years ago, got a degree in Finance and is an Insurance Adjuster in their town. Small world. I would recommend the Big Horn mountains as a destination I just wish they were closer to Florida.

I want to deviate a bit here and comment on some of my observations on this trip regarding the broad diversity of peoples we have in this great country of ours. I’ve been very fortunate and prepared to travel in my camper over some much of America.  Over the past 5 years I’ve spent over 1 year of nights camping in it and have covered about 45,000 miles and in the process have met a lot of great people and have been able to witness the differences of people and cultures even within the relatively small geographical changes of driving across America.

 I think I was more in tune this trip with what I saw along those lines due to the current political and social divides that we are witnessing. As a result I paid more attention to the social conditions in different areas appreciating how they influence opinions, beliefs and behaviors. Let me say upfront that the observation I’m going to share is not to be construed as anything but that. Make your own conclusions from it. I feel this is a glaring example that in my opinion makes it easier to see why we have such divides among us.

I spent 65 continuous nights in the Rockies of New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming. The day I arrived home in Tallahassee, around mid-afternoon, I headed up to the grocery store and in the 15 minutes I was there I saw more Black folks than I had seen in the 65 days in the Rockies.  And while that to me is mind boggling on the social divide side, I found it more revealing as to our political divides that are so heavily influenced by those social conditions and for me it made it easier to understand how we ended up with our current situation.   

August 23rd I left the Rockies and Wyoming and high altitudes and headed due east for the Black Hills of South Dakota. I was there about 25 years ago and was impressed and had always wanted to go back. I was not disappointed. I camped in Custer State Park near the town of Custer, visited Wind Cave Nat'l Park (a new one for me). The Black Hills are pretty special in my opinion. I witnessed a pretty good hail storm at the campground, one of many I witnessed on my trip.

Custer State Park campground

 From there I continued east thru South Dakota and extreme southern Minnesota and eventually into eastern Iowa near the town of Dyersville.  Nearby was a place on my Bucket List I wanted to visit....the movie site of Field of Dreams. I've always loved that movie and going there was pretty damned cool.

Field of Dreams movie site

The movie was released in 1989 and the family who owns the farm elected to leave the ball field in place and it's been a tourist destination ever since. The family has owned the farm for over 100 years. One interesting thing is what Hollywood can do with their cameras. In the pic above can you see how Right Field appears to be sloping upward? It does and as many times as I've watched the movie I never noticed that.

From there I headed north back into Minnesota, my destination being another item on my Bucket List.  In 1976 I headed to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) of northern Minnesota from Virginia with a good buddy and we canoed and camped for a week. We returned again the next year and I've always wanted to go back. It is the area where the French Voyageurs used huge Birch bark canoes to haul furs out of the north woods of the US and Canada to Lake Superior and eventually to the markets of America and Europe primarily in the 18th and early 19th century. The north woods and unlimited lakes hold a very special place in my heart and I spent about 10 days there camping and fishing about 5 miles from the Canadian border on a couple different lakes. Some of the trees were showing their Fall colors. I would have stayed longer if Hurricane Irma hadn't been headed for my home. I had planned to visit Voyageurs Nat'l Park near International Falls , Minn but abandoned that again due to Irma.

On Sept. 10th, the day Irma made landfall in Florida I bugged out of Ely, Minn and headed south back into Iowa. My daughter, who lives in Tallahassee, was 8 1/2 months pregnant at the time and the projected path of Irma didn't bode well for Tallahassee. The previous Sept we had a relatively weak Category 1 Hurricane Hermine come right over Tallahassee and many areas were out of power over a week. Had Irma stayed over the warmer waters just off the west coast of Florida and hit Tally it would have been bad. So I figured if my daughter lost power for an extended period I had a camper with air conditioning that could be run from my generator at home and a bathroom that would be a wonderful thing for a pregnant lady. When Irma stayed inland and the storm weakened my dash for home ended. My daughter did lose power but only for 2 days and they had my generator to keep lights, fans and refrig going at their home. I monitored radar and a wifi camera in my house via my Smartphone from the campground in Iowa. My place didn't lose power and the western edge of the Eyewall passed over my place but it was weak and no big threat by that point. So I spent 3 more days in an Iowa State Park at Clear Lake, Iowa a nice town. It was nearby Clear Lake that in 1959 a small plane crash took the lives of Richie Valens, Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper a.k.a 'The Day the Music Died'. I spent September 11th in Clear Lake and the photo below shows how they felt. It was beautiful and moving. Never forget!

Clear Lake, Iowa

remembering 9/11

My drive through eastern South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota was quite pretty. The hundreds of miles and what must be millions of acres of Corn and Soybeans and Farms were gorgeous in September with the corn tassels glistening in the sunlight. There were also numerous wind farms for power generation throughout those areas.

My original plans would have had me going south from Minnesota thru Wisconsin and eventually to Mammoth Cave Nat'l Park in Kentucky but the forecast path for the remnants of Hurricane Irma had her going to Kentucky and since my camper roof had developed a leak on the trip I needed to avoid excessive rain if possible. So I continued due south thru Missouri and into Arkansas. Here's a tip, avoid driving the Interstates around Kansas City, Mo, they are horrible and are so bad the severe bouncing did damage to the insides of my camper. I entered Arkansas near Bentonville, home of Walmart. The rush hour traffic was horrendous. I spent about 8 days in Arkansas camping in the Ozarks and staying near Hot Springs at Lake Quachita. I added another Nat'l Park to my list by visiting Hot Springs NP while there. I really enjoyed Arkansas and met a couple from Germany who travel the US in a large 5th wheel camper. We coordinated our plans and met up at a 2nd campground and spent more time together. I really enjoyed their company and hope to meet up with them again.

Lake Quachita near Hot Springs, Arkansas

Now I was on the homestretch and made 2 more stops, the Boomtown Casino in Biloxi, Miss which has an RV park next to the Casino and Topsail Hill State Park near Destin, Florida by the beach.

the beach at Topsail Hill SP near Destin, Fl

I spent 101 nights on the road, camping every one of them. I basically despise commercial RV parks and favor Municipal, State or Federal campgrounds. I only spent 8 of the 101 nights in a commercial campground. I added 2 new National Parks to my list I've visited bringing my total to 39. I did 9180 miles and I don't care to add up my gas bill, suffice to say it was a bunch. So over the last 5 years I've done 3 major trips out west along with some east coast travel. It adds up to about 45000 miles and over a year of nights spent in my camper over those 5 years. I'm ready to go again anytime. There is an endless supply of wondrous places in this great country of ours and another new friend to make around ever corner.

I hope you enjoy the photos as much as I do. I have the advantage of being able to look at them and relive the memories and when I do I realize how fortunate I am to have been able to make those memories.

Here's the link to the trip photos I've posted on Google Photos. They have captions at the bottom but I haven't figured out how to consistently display them.

Dave

 https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNRxS5cn9a1Czi-XVJLQYkfduo68W5HQmtDN6o3WtvJnb3autOtsGC-cQD46U9dWA?key=X2h5TEs1LTNEYWZEci02STRmOWZHcVVKeGlBeWlB