Niobrara State Park

We stayed at Niobrara State Park for several days the first week of Aug. It is a real nice state park with lots of deer and wild turkeys roaming the park area. It sits along the Missouri River and is home to a lot of Sandhill Cranes. We road our bikes along the bike trail that runs alongside the river. It was an old railroad bed that has been converted to a trail.

It was a very nice ride with great views of the river and bluffs on the South Dakota side of the river. We rode for about 14 miles total and then went into the town of Niobrara to see what we could find there. It looks like a nice small town and we rode thru the neighborhoods then back out to the campground.

Here is a photo of one of the cranes out in the river and one shot of us along the river. the cranes are real hard to get close too as they are very nervous so I had to use a telephoto shot from our pickup truck to get this shot.

Nebraska National Forest

We left Scottsbluff area and headed out to the Nebraska National Forest, the only hand planted National Forest in the US. The trees were planted back in the 1930's and 40's. A tree nursery was established in this area to grow the trees for this area and also other national forests.

The campground was a little uneven in most sites as it looked like they had had some rains at sometime and it had washed out some areas of the campsites making them uneven. we found a newer site further down in the campground and had plenty of room. It was hot so we decided to go check out the swimming pool!! This is the only National forest campground in the US with its own swimming pool. It was built

back in the 1940's probably to accomodate the CCC workers that were "building" the Nebraska National Forest. The pool looked nice but was crowded so we opted to go for a "swim" in the Middle Loup River which runs thru this area.

The River is about 100 yards wide and 6 inches deep in most places, so we kinda

did a float. Shasta enjoyed walking thru the water and we gave her a quick bath by splashing water on her. It cooled her off and we also got cooled down as it had been close to 100 and humid when we got to the campground.

We stayed a few days then headed to Niobrara State Park in the NE part of Nebraska.

Boyd Lake

We reluctantly left Rocky MT National Park and went down to Boyd Lake on the east end of Loveland. The good news is we met up with many friends in the area.

We arrived on Thur afternoon and set up the rig and headed into town for lunch when we ran into Larry on his way in the park to check out the campsites that we were all going to be staying at! We went into town and had a good lunch. Then Bobi came out after work and we had a small get together that evening before they headed back home.

On Sunday Larry and Bobi and family from Wellington CO and Tennessee came out to the campground and set up their rig for a few days of fun!! Dennie and Dee came up from Colorado Springs on Monday for 3 days and brought their boat. Dennie and Barb water skied, I attempted to ski but gave up after 2 tries, too tough on this old man!!

We had a great bike ride on Saturday with friends from Ft Collins and Maryls and Alan came out for BBQ on Sunday. JR and Karen came out on Monday nite for BBQ then brought their rig out on Tuesday along with Granddaughter and Great Grandson.

We had a real good time all week, till we packed up and headed for Colo Springs and Dennie and Dee's house for a day!

After relaxing for one day in the springs we then headed for Pueblo Reservoir for a weekend of camping and relaxing on the lake. We had a great time again and the weather has been cooperating for the entire trip.

We then headed back to Colorado Springs and stayed at Dennie and Dee's campground for days and nights. We had a good time and actually worked for awhile on redoing our bike rack on the back of the Fifth Wheel. We got it back up and running and it has been working great.

We then left to head back up to Nebraska to pick up Shasta, our dog, as she had been staying with my folks in Scottsbluff. She really enjoys staying up there while we run around the area!!

Rocky Mountain National Park

Here are some images of the animal life. On the patch of snow is a herd of elk and they were running around like a bunch of kids, kicking up their heals and having fun. It was great to watch!

here we are riding down from the top!!

After having a great time at Bockman State Forest outside Gould CO we left on monday and went to Rocky Mtn National Park. We always enjoy staying up at Rocky, the scenery is top notch and it is nice to sit outside the camper and look at the view right from your campsite. This a shot

of Long's Peak right from our campsite!!

We drove up to the top of the park and decided to take turns riding our bikes down to the bottom. The view on the way down was spectacular!! 12.5 miles from 12,000 feet down to about 8,000 feet. What a fun ride, so much so we did it again the next day!!

Rocky is well know for its large heard of Elk and Big Horn Sheep. We saw lots of Elk but did not get to see any Big Horns this year. We went looking for Moose, but they were also being very elusive.

Bockman Campout with High Plains Drifters

We left Scottsbluff July 9th to meet up with the Hi Plains Drifters from Fort Collins/Loveland area. We stayed the night on Wed at Dutch George Flats on the Poudre River about 30 miles outside Fort Collins. It was a nice quiet night. We went up to Bockman Campground the next day, it is located about 15 miles on the other side of Cameron Pass area of Hwy 14. We were hoping to see some moose along the Hwy as this area has a lot of them around, but after 4 days there we never saw a single one. We probably would have seen one if we had gone out in the evening when it was cooler.

We had a fun time with the group, Bobi and Larry came up from Ault and we went on a 3 or 4 mile hike. We also drove around the area to see if we could spot some wildlife and managed to see a herd of elk. We had a BBQ on saturday nite and the club had their meeting and did some voting, for some reason when I kept voting no on everything they ignored me(must be because we are only honorary members now)

Looks like everyone had a great time and the food was great as always. We hope to be able to see the group each time we come back to Fort Collins area. (maybe we can win the 50/50 someday that way also)

Everyone left on sunday and we stayed up there till monday morning before leaving to go to Rocky Mtn National Park in Estes Park.

Here are a few photos of the area around Bockman and some of the camping group.