My Family Background

Try to make sense of this. Its like trying to interpret Shakespeare. Except its not the bard but a barely literate hoke from Wisconsin that is kin to me. I get about 50 percent of it. I identify more with the illiterate than the grammar nazi in me. My parents are literate in numerous dialects and so am I thanks to them, but I didn't know this one well. They had to interpret it for me. My kinfolk talked better than they wrote. And they worked harder at working than school.

Hike near Estes Park

Hiking in the Colorado Mountains works your bloodstream when youre used to living in the Coastal Plains of Texas. It wasnt a difficult hike but the pace was more than I could handle. I just kept going along with my friends in agony though because to slow down too much just seemed unacceptable. I've hiked longer than that in Austin and never felt so miserable. It's not that youre tired and weak. Its that you think you cant make it another step. This trail starts near an old trading post you see in the first pic. The best way to hike or horse into Estes Park area before roads and cars was this trail. The blight among the trees is wither bugs or fires. Can't remember because both are prevalent in the Rockies. Bummer. And the small lake micro-biome was messed up from a flood recently. Global warming dude. 

Rocky Mountain Camp in Estes Park

If you've got a few thousand dollars and want to send your kid off for a month then this camp would be great. Maybe not for your kid but for you. From what I can tell these camps actually are great for the kids. But I might not have made it a whole month. Give me a cabin with running water and civilization. If you had to rough it this camp would be awesome - the views and the air and the hiking and being away from civilization. The original dude of this camp started bringing kids out into the mountains for a few days and it grew from there. I'm guessing it was so long ago that you could buy huge amounts of mountain land for cheap. His grandson visited my teacher friend and I at the cabin and we had a long, long talk with him. He and Eddie had been friends for years and yet Eddie kept asking about the history of his grandfather and father who built the camp into what it is. I'm glad he did. I heard some very interesting stories. He had a religious zeal to him that was baked into the organization from its originator. A deep, heart-felt commitment that bringing kids out into nature was vital to the health of their mind, body, and spirit.