Chatfield State Park

We always enjoy our stay at Chatfield State Park. Not only is it near our son Eric's home, it is a really nice state park. One day we walked on a trail that followed part of the South Platte River east of the park.



One night, we had a beautiful sunset.



Last night, the setting sun was shining on the tall grass behind our trailer beneath of sky that was half dark clouds and half blue sky with a few white clouds. What contrasts.



We can tell fall is coming. Some days, we need to wear jeans. Other days, the temps get up into the 80s. Leaves on some of the trees are beginning to turn.



Even the shrubs and flowers are indicating autumn.





Colorado state parks aren't inexpensive.  Our full-hookup site costs $26 a night, plus an $8 a day car pass.  But that isn't bad for the great campsites, especially when we were paying $40 a night for crowded commercial campgrounds in Wyoming and South Dakota.



And lines like this are why we prefer full hookups.

Indications of Things to Come

It is still summer. In the east, rain has brought flooding (also here in Colorado when rain falls on land scarred by forest fires earlier this summer or last year). In the west, hot and dry conditions have led to numerous raging wildfires. Here at Mueller, the days are warm (for nearly 10,000 ft) with highs in the upper 60s and lower 70s. We are sitting on top of a ridge, so we don't have to worry about floods and we've had enough rain, the fire danger is only moderate.

But changes are coming. Last night, the Denver and Colorado Springs areas had heavy rain and lots of hail. We didn't have any hail here in the park, but today when we drove less than three miles north and east, we saw what looked like drifts of snow on the roadside and the fields were dusted with white. The low temperature last night was about 49, making snow unlikely. And to see it still around after noon told us it must have been hail. This is the view we saw outside our car as we drove east on US Hwy 24.

We saw these mounds next to a building. If you look closely at the second photo, you will see the small hailstones.

All of this tells what will be coming soon. See this Aspen tree branch? It has turned yellow. It won't be long till the hilsides around here will be covered with gold--fall leaves.

We visited Mueller last September to interview for this volunteer position. You can check out the beauty we saw then, here.

We hope to see some of this fall beauty before we leave Sept. 9, but that may be a little early in the season.

Another sign that fall is on its way is this van and trailer. All those ATVs and coolers suggest hunting, in our opinion. I'm not familiar enough with the hunting season calendar to know where these folks may be headed.

The sky was clear Monday evening when I captured this almost full moon rising over Pikes Peak.

Alaska -- Day 89

As we drove north from Glennallen to Tok today, the views were impressive. The Wrangell Mountains include two peaks over 16,000 feet high, one just over 12,000. I don't know which one this is.



For many miles our view to the east was over Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. The miles and miles of forest reminded of what we saw in the Yukon.



We had warm, sunny weather. But the trees tell us fall is on its way.





At these elevations (we were above 1500 feet) the fireweed is in full bloom and beautiful.



Tomorrow we leave mainland Alaska and go back into Canada. We will be there for two nights before returning to Alaska in the panhandle.

It's Fall

And that means a drive to the mountains to see the changing leaves--at least if you are in Colorado. So that is what we did last week. We drove west on US 285 toward Fairplay and we saw lots of beautiful aspen groves changing color.



In the Colorado high country, most of the trees with leaves are aspen and they most often turn a bright yellow or gold--maybe because so much gold was mined in these mountains. If you are from other parts of the country, you may be used to bright reds and oranges, but you may not see the changing leaves against the dark green of the conifer trees we have here.



Sometimes we do see some orange leaves.



On our way into Fairlay, we drove through the town of Como, where there is an old railroad roundhouse.



It was built with three bays, expanded to six, then reduced to three after a fire and slowing traffic on the Denver, South Park and Pacific Railroad. Not much is left of Como, but the people who live there may identify their homes by color instead of address. Look at this one, across the street from the roundhouse.



The Park County Courthouse in Fairplay must have been the smallest courthouse built in Colorado.



It is now the library. And they don't built them like that any more. Here are the Park County offices today.



On the far side of Fairplay, we drove over Hoosier Pass to Breckenridge. The pass isn't for the faint of heart. More than one curve had a sign like this one.



We even saw a lot of color in the town of Breckenridge.



On the way back to Cherry Creek State Park on the east side of Denver, we drove through the Johnson Tunnel, the east-bound bore of the Eisenhower Tunnel, which goes through the Rockies and Continental Divide at about 11,000 feet above sea level. It is really impressive and saves miles of travel and lots of weather delays for skiers and others.