So Jenn talked me into staying in Denver. It wasn’t hard really, this town is extremely progressive and geared towards athletic young professionals. Jenn has to work during the week, but promises to take a day off to go hiking with me. At this very same time, I find out that a position is opening up with Gulf Islands National Seashore back home in Pensacola, and I decide to apply for it. In order to apply, I have to totally recreate my resume and CV to fit the federal format. The federal format is awful only because it can only be used for federal jobs. To make things worse, I don’t have Microsoft Word. So, I buy Word, and spend the week creating and tweaking resumes, CVs and cover letters for two job openings. It worked out fine as there are multiple coffee shops within walking distance to Jenn’s house. When I got fed up with working on resumes, I worked at pulling weeds in the backyard. It was good stress relief and I felt good helping my friend out with yard work. Makes me miss home though…
On one of the days, Jenn and I go hiking near Boulder, CO at Indian Peaks Wilderness Area. She picks a hike she’s never done around Brainerd Lake (maybe that’s spelled right), so we pack up the dog, some cold weather gear, and head west. The drive out there was beautiful, as we passed through Boulder and Nederlands. She tells me about her first experience with a flash flood while living in Boulder… Sounds absolutely terrifying. These canyons act as big funnels that lead water towards the valleys and cities.
Once there, my National Park Pass gets us in (still in love with this pass) and we find parking. So many people are out here hiking! On a Thursday morning… Do these people have jobs??
The hike up was beautiful, filled with mountain views, meadows, shallow lakes and snow packs. Jenn takes way too many photos, and I am trying my best to not be out of breath at this altitude. 11,000 feet I think? I don’t want to look like a pussy…
At the top, we notice a storm bearing down on us, or at least it looks like it’s bearing down on us. I have no idea how to read weather in the mountains. We take a few more photos and quickly head down. I forgot to mention, while hiking up I found a purple hydro flask water bottle on the trail. I picked it up and proceeded to ask every person that passed us if they had dropped it. Being purple and dainty, I assumed it was a female’s water bottle. Look at me, gender assigning water bottles. I’m an asshole. Regardless, I found its owner at the top of the hike, and it was a young guy. He was hoping he would find it on his hike back…
Once we got back to the car, Jenn decided we should go find a coffee shop so she can answer a few work emails. Works for me! I love coffee and WiFi so of course I’m in. The shop we find is another Yelp gem. It’s basically a coffee/ice cream/bookstore and the owner is a legit hippy from the 60s. She’s probably my dad’s age but has bleached her hair and dyed it all shades of blue and purple. I instantly love this place. The woman makes us our drinks and tells us to hang out as long as we’d like. We grab a table in the tiny bookstore and begin our work.
As we sit there, I can’t help but notice that we just so happened to set up shop next to the sex section of books. There are so many!! Like, an entire wall dedicated just to this topic. On top of this, a girl and her father are playing the trivial pursuit card game very loudly next to us. All in all, this coffee shop is highly distracting. But Jenn is able to power through… All while I’m stuck reading sex book titles listening to geography questions. Such is life.
When we got back to Denver, we decided we needed to prep for the camping trip that weekend. Apparently, people in big cities don’t do their own grocery shopping? You just go on Amazon and your groceries are delivered to your door in an hour. I would think this is a onetime thing I witnessed, but the same occurrence happened with my cousin in Chicago. Anyway, we picked out groceries online and drew up a game plan of how we were all getting to the camp site tomorrow after the normal people got off work.
Friday finally rolls around, and Jenn gets off work a little early. We load up the dog and groceries in my truck, grab beer and ice, and head to Poudre Canyon. Don’t you just love that name? Poudre. Lol. I thought it was a joke, but no, real name. It takes about 3 hours to get there, which isn’t too bad considering how remote this place is. We find Jenn’s friend Trevor placing flagging tape along one of the dirt roads so everyone can find the camp spot. We try and tell Trevor that the GPS point we sent to everyone will suffice, but he wants to be sure. Can’t blame him, it would be super easy to get turned around back here and there’s no cell phone service.
Once we set up camp and everyone arrives, we get the fire rolling and start cooking dinner. Can’t remember for the life of me what we cooked, but it was delicious. The next morning we wake up early, have coffee, make breakfast burritos, then head out to a hike. There is a sweet alpine lake to check out at the end of this hike Jenn picked out, so we load up our stuff and the dog, and head out towards the trail head. Once there, we see a sweet bull moose in the parking lot. People apparently love moose as much as they love arches…
At the top, there is a crystal clear lake with tons of trout. Like, so many trout it looks like you could reach down and grab one… I don’t know if I have confessed this to the blog yet, but I really wanted to catch a fish with my bear hands while on this trip. This was my moment… I find a stick, attach a knife to the end of it with a shoelace, and wade out into the frigid water. Waiting to strike an unsuspecting trout. The rest of the friends group fashion cane fishing pole out of scavenged monofilament and safety pins as hooks. We are going full out survival mode here trying to catch a trout. Alas, we were not successful, but it was a shit load of fun! It took a solid 20 minutes to get feeling back in my feet, but I didn’t care.
Once we were back at the car, Jenn decides that we need to go check out the visitor center at this State Park. PS the park is called State Forest State Park. Is it a State Park? Is it a State Forest? Is it both? Who the fuck knows!! But, when we roll into the visitor center, we see a volunteer wearing paper moose antlers directing traffic. Um, what is going on? Oh! It’s Moose Fest! Didn’t you know?? Of course we didn’t know, but we happily trot inside to see what Moose Fest is all about!
At the front there is a lady handing out pieces of paper and pencils. It’s a moose trivia scavenger hunt! We strategically set up three teams, divide the questions up among the teams, and head into the visitor center to find our moose facts. Did you know that moose shed their antlers every year, but it’s uncommon to find them because mice eat them once they hit the forest floor?? Crazy. We wander around, pet many moose hides, talk to folks working educational booths, then circle back to claim our scavenger hunt prizes. A tiny stuffed moose and a sticker that says Certified Moose-ologist.
We head back to camp pretty early in the day, and decide to get a game of cornhole running while listening to music, drinking beer, and eating from the largest bag of popcorn I’ve ever seen. A few hours in, we decide to cut open a watermelon that Jenn and I lugged here in the truck. As she cuts in, we realize it’s mealy as shit and completely inedible. Dang. That was going to be a nice cool treat while in the woods. Nevertheless, we found another for it. We’re going to shoot it with the shotgun.
I’m proud to say my first vegan hunting experience was successful! The watermelon basically disintegrated with one shot. That was probably the most red-neck activity that has taken place this entire trip.
We drink, hang out by the fire, swap camping stories, then head to bed for the night. Jenn and I get into the truck and start reminiscing on college days, when a huge storm hits us out of nowhere. We’re dry and warm in the truck, but we’re worried about our friends in tents around us. Not worried enough to get out and check on them obviously, but enough to where we mention it to each other…
The next morning, everyone packs up and leaves for Denver. I decide to stay in the woods a bit longer and write. I’m headed north after this, so no need to go back to Denver. I pass Jenn and her stuff off to her friends and say my goodbyes to everyone. It was difficult to watch everyone roll away. It felt like for just a weekend, that I had a solid group of friends back, and we just took a random camping trip in the woods. Reality sets back in as I stand at camp waving goodbye to everyone. It’s bittersweet.
When I decide to finally leave, it’s not by choice. A huge storm has rolled in again, so I take to the truck and decide to head out. As I drive north, I’m met with some of the most intense storms I have ever seen. The radar is impressive, and the radio is only playing national weather tornado warnings like the weekend top 40 list. I’m pretty sure Casey Kasem is reading them out. Shit. What am I supposed to do? I decide to duck into a rest stop along the highway and wait one of the larger storms out. I’m not the only one here, a herd of bikers show up, and a few more motorists take shelter inside. This storm is creepy…
Of course it passes with no incident, so I continue my drive north to South Dakota. I’m trying to get to the Black Hills to camp. I don’t have a great preconception of what South Dakota is, so I have no idea of what to expect. I get in to a campsite at the black hills around sunset, and realize that this natural community feels oddly like home. Pine trees, check. Low herbaceous cover of grasses and forbs, check. Tons of cool flowers, check. Damn this feels just like the longleaf pine ecosystems that I left in Florida! Except, these pine flatwoods exist on the tops of huge rocky plateaus. But minus that, just like home. It’s beautiful, and cool, and smells like fresh deep woods. Who would have thought I would like South Dakota so much!
In the morning, I wake up early and head to one of the main destinations that brought me to the Dakotas, Devil’s Tower National Monument. I learned about this place from my coworker Bryan at FWC. We would be discussing a construction project that could have imperiled species impacts, and while on Google Earth we would occasionally get stuck looking at crazy natural features. Like, you’re trying to zoom in on FL but get caught looking at lava beds in New Mexico. Some stuff just looks incredible on aerial maps… One of the oddities we stumbled across was Devil’s Tower.
No one really knows how it was created, but there are a few theories. Here’s my favorite… There used to be a volcano at this location, and the tower was actually a plug of igneous rock deep underground. It solidified, and over time the surrounding rock and sediment eroded away, leaving the volcano plug exposed. Solid enough theory…
After walking around the herds of people photographing the tower, I head over to the town of Spearfish to finish resume work and to get some coffee. I also visited a brewery aptly named Spearfish to get a flight of local beer. The best part of the brewery was the logo.
Leaving the brewery, I decide to go ahead and knock out Mt. Rushmore while it’s still daylight and decent weather. A 20 minute drive brought me to the most touristy town outside of Rushmore. Keystone Heights? There are tons of shitty motels, steak houses and putt putt golf places. I get to the entrance of Mt. Rushmore to see that I have to pay $10 to park at the monument. Sigh… I guess I have to right? I park in a monstrous parking garage and walk with the herds of visitors.
Once there, I realize that the monument is under massive construction. Most everything is closed down. Everything except the restaurant and gift shop… I can see the heads a little bit, but nothing grandiose. I take a pic, then immediately walk back to the truck. Total waste of time, but still had to be done I suppose. The only positive of Mt. Rushmore was that it led me to a sweet camping spot in a different section of the black hills. This spot was pretty close to the main highway, but remote in the sense that no one came this way. It was just a bit too rough for passenger cars. My favorite type of trail.
As I settle in for the night, I realize I need one more day to finish my resume and apply for the park job I’m eyeing back home. So, probably another day here in the black hills. Doesn’t sound so bad…
