Moose? What Moose?

My activity of choice over Labor Day? Camping on privately owned land - because you won't catch me within 300 miles of any of the public campgrounds (which were all reserved in February, anyway). Fortunately, I have friends who own private land. And I'm a shameless mooch (for this once a year activity, at any rate).

One of the more fascinating aspects of Colorado is it's schizophrenic weather. (I've actually seen it snow on a clear and sunny day. In fact, I think I posted a picture in my blog . . . ). What few folks realize is - the rocks and landscape are as varied as the weather. Beautiful - but nonsensical. For example:

The leg from Denver to Fort Collins - wide open, blue skies, and if people can see for miles, the circling hawks can probably see the ocean. Of course, as we approached Fort Collins, there was an odd haze . . .

A murky haze that cars just vanished into.

The landscape turned surreal.

There was no smell of smoke, so I think this was a low-lying cloud. A gray, smoky, misguided piece of mist. Or it was an attempt by aliens to turn our atmosphere into clone feed (how's that for a Doctor Who reference :P :P :P). Either way, on the other side, the hawks could see clear to Hawaii.

Plateaus . . .

became scattered rock formations . . .


and turned into pine forest.

I love places where you have to "take the road less traveled by."

Oh - and if you see a bunch of random fences in a field - they're called "snowbreaks." Believe it or not, this is a fence meant to keep snow off the highway. I'm talking 10 foot drifts of snow. Not kidding.


And . . . once we made camp - we did nothing. Glorious wonderful absolute nothing. We did have to pitch the tent in closer to our friends' free-standing gazebo structure since there have been sightings of moose (moose? what moose?) and we didn't fancy a 700 pound hooved critter wandering through the tent. Other than that - we sat in the sun. We listened to the wind roar through the trees. We took walks through the forest and played horseshoes. (For anyone who's never played horseshoes, you take a set of horseshoes (yes, those U-shaped things that go on horse feet) and throw them at a metal pole sticking out of the ground. If you're really good, the shoe will end up on the pole. If you're really bad (like me) your shoe will end up under the bushes or completely buried in the dirt.) We also set up some stumps and practiced knife, stick, and hatchet throwing . . . which felt oddly unfeminine. Though it was amusing to watch the non-dog try and fetch a hatchet.

Other highlights of our trip . . .

Happy camper. . . or wild kid-ling accompanied by non-pochi.

Sleeping bag for two.

A fuzzy picture of me taken by A. (Yes, I am reading a bento book - why do you ask? Obsession. Not kidding about the obsession part.)

And fire by moonlight.

I hope you all had a happy Labor Day as well!