Non Photo-Blue

I'm writing this just outside Rocky Mountain National Park, where I spent the last two days camping. Way up near the tundra at 11,000 feet. But I'm not writing about that, as there is about a four day delay in this blog. So you'll have to wait for that.

So, Monday the 15th. After camping in Wind Cave, I got up, and went on a tour of the actual cave. It was beautiful. Like Jewel Cave, Wind Cave breathes- meaning it either blows out air or sucks it in, to match the pressure outside. Sometimes as much as 35 miles per hour. It's no wonder the Black Hills were so sacred to the Native Americans, as entrances to cave like this may have been revered as entrances into the underworld, where shamans would enter to heal someone. The cool part about this cave is that it contains 90% of the "box work" in all the caves in the world. Box Work is calcite formations, that look like post office boxes: this frames that are left after the limestone is eaten away.

So after I left wind cave, I took a hike that leads to "Lookout Point," a steep climb up to the top of a hill, where there ws a once used fire tower lookout. Now that fires are controlled, and only used in a "prescribed" fashion (this is to burn down the forest to protect the prairie land of Wind Cave, which is a marked feature of WC- the mixture of prairie and forest and hills, and how the different species that thrive in each area co-exist. Anyway, enough ecology). From the top of the Fire Tower, I could see the entire WC NP, Custer State Park (where I was the day before) and even as far as the Badlands, way in the distance. Quite a view.

That evening I headed towards Denver, CO, where on Tuesday I was to meet my friend who would accompany me to California. I headed west, through the stunning countryside of Eastern Wyoming.

The ride to Denver was long enough. About six hours.

Total miles on Monday: 484. Total to date (Mon) for trip: 2,947.

I was planning to stay at a hostel in Denver. But when I arrived I found out that the office closed at 10:30, and no new people could register until the next day. I was slightly looking forward to sleeping in a bed, being that I hadn't since Chicago on Tuesday night. But the neighborhood was sketchy, and there was a guy waiting outside, who seemed a bit off. His name was "Hoe" (I'm sure that's not how it's spelled) and told me he traveled back and forth from L.A. to Denver. Not for any discernible reason. He was nice enough, but smelled a bit musty, (though I'm sure I smelled worse) and had a weird tick when he talked. He said the Hostel wasn't that clean but was better than the other ones in town. So, it was bad vibes all over.


But the good thing about Denver is a ten minute ride west on I-70 will take you from a major city to an isolated mountain. So there I went, to a place called Genesse Park, one exit past the famed Red Rock Amphitheater. There, I hammocked (illegally, I might add, as there were no camping signs everywhere, but I rationalized,"hammocking is not exactly camping, is it?") There was a spectacular view of Denver up there, and I slept soundly until about three a.m., when the mountain chill sets in.

Oh, about driving through Denver: it was sort of a flashback to 80's NYC. You could see the gentrification even driving by at two a.m. From good area, to bad, back to trendy, then bad again. On the street corners were lots of crazies- pimps, prostitutes, and various maniacs crossing the street, ignoring the traffic while singing 70's songs. The nice part was these areas were racially mixed. There were black pimps, toothless white screamers, even Indians and Spanish getting into the mix. It was, and is, the Wild West.