fishing at Ranger Lakes

The Ranger Lakes are also at State Forest (in case I forgot to mention it -- we had camped at the North Michigan Reservoir). Since the fishing on the N. Michigan hadn't been stellar, today we moved on in search of different waters. Happily for Tom, the fish were quite lively. I took a short hike, and read my book for a while -- then we moved along...
In the distance of the top photo are the Nohuk Crags. According to the information along the Nature Walk, these were once part of an ancient sea-floor. Pretty cool.

surf & turf, Tom-style

Our 2nd night we had planned for steak (as our back-up dinner). Happily, Tom caught a very nice trout -- about 15 or so inches. It was delicious! So we had trout, steak, couscous with cranberries, and grilled asparagus. YUM!!!

autumn?

Nope -- Lodge Poles mixed in with other pines....

more of day #2

I took the top photo to show some of the destruction that the bark beetles have created for the Lodge Pole Pines. The Lodge Poles are commonly the first pines to inhabit an area after a fire -- because they like lots of sun. Their main defense against bark beetles is producing sap. However, when there have been many drought years in a row, the Lodge Poles can't retain enough moisture to produce sap, so the bark beetles can kill whole forests of Lodge Poles.

The strange thing was that when you see the Lodge Poles mixed in with other kinds of pines, covering an entire mountain, it looked like North Carolina in the fall -- a pretty mix of oranges, rusts, and greens. So even though a substantial amount of the forest is actually dying, it was a very pretty sight.
The lower pictures: of course, no matter how tired we were, Tom wasn't too tired to keep fishing....

400 feet -- my ass!

On day #2 we took a monster-hike. Tom picked it, actually -- which suprised me (he usually picks shorter ones) and I was doubly glad that he had picked the hike when he was getting grumbly about its steepness.
When we had talked about the hike-options, I had mentioned that this particular hike climbs "about 400 feet, once you leave Grass Creek Road [which was a couple of miles into the hike already] and join the Gould Mountain Road." Well, Tom only heard the "about 400 feet" part -- and somehow tuned out the rest of my description. So when we climbed about 900 feet (topping out at nearly 10,000 feet) and traveled 7 or 8 miles, he was a bit surprised!
Thankfully -- we had perfect weather, and it was a gorgeous hike. I think Tom picked quite well!

flowers & butterflies everywhere!

I was not as successful at capturing the butterflies on "film"...

I have not lost (nor doubt that I will every lose) my ability to be completely mesmerized by fire.

first evening

As you can see, the first afternoon Tom only caught some small trout (which he threw back, of course). So we ate spaghetti that night. There was red-sauce, too -- but I was more amused by the plentiful nature of the mosquitoes....
Of course, no good camping night is complete without a roaring fire and some excellent s'mores.

checkin' out the campground

Tom and I took a little walk after getting our camp set up. The scenery was GORGEOUS! There were lots of flowers everywhere -- I quite enjoyed taking pictures of the Blue Columbines (the CO state flower).

30 seconds from arrival to fishing

As you can see, our campsite was right on the water. It didn't take Tom very long to drop in his first line...
One of the cool things about this campsite (or maybe all of the campsites in the CO state park system? I haven't really explored this yet) is that when you make your reservations on line, there is a photo-link to each individual campsite. So we specifically chose this campsite because of 1)opportunities for shade, and 2)proximity to the water.

State Forest State Park

OK, State Forest seems like an odd name for a State Park, but that's where we chose to explore. It's supposed to be known for moose-viewing. The only moose that we saw were at the visitor's center: the one inside was stuffed; the one outside was made of reclaimed barbed-wire.

taking it all in

We made 5 stops on the way to our destination -- which seems like a lot, since we were only going about 120 miles. But it was so pretty, we just couldn't help ourselves. We definitely thought of our nephew when climbing over Cameron Pass, which was 10,279 feet high. Down here in the "flats" (our house is about 5,300 feet above sea level) it was probably 95 degrees.... up there, it was a lovely 70 or so.

ready to roll

Tom and I went on a 3-day camping trip. When we left, we were both amused by our loaded-down sedan -- for 2 people, 2 nights, and tent-only camping! We both marveled at the fact that our parents took us camping when we were young -- in my parent's case, in a (much) smaller car (Tom's family had a station wagon) but with 4 people, for longer periods -- seemingly with much less stuff.
As you can see, Donkey was ready to roll!

butterflies & flowers

I think the best thing about today's walk were the flowers. There were field of purples, whites, pinks -- and they smelled great. It was really cool how the butterflies camouflaged so nicely -- especially againts the white buttercups. (Well, I don't think they are actually buttercups, but I have no idea what they are -- so Tom and I refer to them as buttercups.)

excellent weather

Both today and yesterday Tom and I have gotten outside before I had to go to work. (I actually like working the 4p-MN shifts for this very reason.) Yesterday we went over to our neighborhood reservoir (or Tom's fishing hole) where he fished and I jogged. We were both so happy that at 2p we could be outside. It was warm, but not too hot....
Today we went to a nearby trail that cuts through some private farm land and ends up at a small lake. Our timing was perfect: it started out sunny, then the clouds rolled in on our way back, and just as we were getting to the car -- we had big splotchy rain drops. Perfect.
And sorry I haven't been blogging too much: last weekend we went to a Rockies game, and brought the camera -- but the battery was dead. The following night we went out to (quite tasty) sushi -- and forgot the camera altogether!