Colorado! A Trip Long Overdue

Colorado has always held a special place in my heart. Last month I returned to the Centennial State for the first time in nearly three decades. A trip that was LONG overdue. 

Three days of yoga workshops, disc golf and scenic drives took us to some wonderful and mysterious places. 

Yoga Journal hosted a week-long event on the Estes Park YMCA, an enormously acreous retreat "camp" located high in the mountains adjacent to Rocky Mountain National Park. 

The air was crisp and clean and we didn't see a soul on the trail that chose us for our walk in the park. 

House on a rock... not the one in Wisconsin. One of many in Colorado.

Quaking Aspen grandstand vibrant yellows throughout the mountainous regions. 

Evidence of last spring's floods along the road to Estes Park was a grim reminder of Mother Nature's tendency to occasionally go too far. 

Estes Park and Glen Haven were completely cut off and supplies had to be helicoptered in. 

Sparkling new CMP, (corrugated metal pipe), now ornament the new roads that have been reconstructed since the deluge that destroyed hundreds of bridges and wiped out entire sections of road.

Though our hotel was in Loveland, we took many random roads for hours, zig-zagging our way through the endless farmlands.  

We stumbled upon a couple cemeteries, one of which was especially interesting. Niwot Cemetery in Boulder County.

Apparently, in 1895, something terrible happened to lots of children in Niwot. Maybe they died from Smallpox or influenza... or maybe a crazed* child killer. 

There are numerous children's graves in the old section of the cemetery, (most of it is the old section). Some families were hit harder than others. The earliest headstone of one family had been carefully crafted and tediously manufactured with artistique, time-consuming care. 

Latter family members, all young children, died within months of one another. Their monuments were less ornamented and seemingly more hastily crafted. Apparently, the headstone maker was rather busy in 1895. 

We parked on the street at the University in Boulder to enjoy some sandwiches we had made. That's where I happened upon this light post that has been consumed by a tree. 

Before we knew it, we were leaving; heading back to life behind the Zion Curtain. 

Adios Colorado! See ya again real soon!!! 

*Mother Nature out of control again.