No Electricity So No Caches So We Didn't Do Much 6/24/2010

This morning the City of Loveland shut the power off for about an hour so we had to wait around so we could print some caches off but the only thing was that once they turned it back on we couldn't get connected to the internet for some reason. We hung around trying and trying but nothing and because we are so far out in the middle of nowhere we couldn't connect using our lap top card either. Well we hung around until about 10:30 and nothing so we left to run a few errands. Mom wanted to take aride to the outlet mall in Loveland so off we went. We got there and when we did all we found was empty stores. Most of the outlet was unoccupied so we drove to the mall next door and she walked through a few stores while I waited. Then we headed back to the coach and stopped at Office Depot to pick up a new SD 2GB memory card for the camera.


On our way back we stopped off at the Devil's Backbobe Open Space close to the campgrounds. The story of this ride begins about 72 million years ago. A mere wink of geologic time. Around then an offshore subcontinent containing parts of California (figures!) Nevada and Utah collided with the West Coast of America, beginning a festival of mountain building known as the Laramide Orogeny. Then, as an added bonus, about 28 million years ago the whole region was uplifted, so 5,000 foot mountains became 10,000 foot mountains. These mountains created the Devil's Backbone. The Devil's backbone, along with the entire Dakota Hogback, used to be a horizontal layer of sedimentary rock. Specifically, the ancient shore of a tropical sea, where the Apatosaurus happily munched on some sort of prehistoric greenery, and the Allosaurus (we can only assume) happily munched on the Apatosaurus. Life was tropical, warm, and as long as you remained on the proper side of the munching, good. So how did this world get turned, quite literally, on its ear? Imagine yourself under the ice sheet of a frozen pond. The environs down there are quite cold, not to mention anoxic, so in your fervent desire to exit upwards to free, dry air, you punch your fist upward through the ice. Take a snapshot of that moment. Your fist, believe it or not, is the Rocky Mountains, and the ice that cracks and tilts upwards around it is the Devil's Backbone. The Devil's Backbone Open Space protects wildlife habitat, a rare plant community and provides for expanded recreational activities. Its focal point, a unique rock formation featuring The Keyhole, is easily spotted from many locales. The 7 mile round trip trail accommodates multiple-use recreation such as hiking, mountain biking, and horseback riding.


When we got back I still couldn't get online so I took the pc to the office and their computer whiz couldn't figure it out either. I went back to the coach and was fooling around with it and all of a sudden it connected for who knows what reason. We spent the rest of the afternoon at the coach and went to a small local brew pub for dinner. It was named PourHouse and had excellent food with a few different twists. I had sliders, which seem to be big here, and sweet potato fries with a gorgonzola sauce and Mom had clam chowder and rangoons stuffed with cream cheese and mushrooms. It was very good again and a very quaint local spot. Well that's about it for today from here so until tomorrow we love and miss you all. Mom & Dad Dori & Dick