Great Sand Dunes

Eric's mom had put together a family camping trip for the 4th of July weekend. Of course, Eric and I were much more interested in exploring than anyone else, so we often ran off to find some adventures.

July 2
The first day we drove to 11 Mile Reservoir and set up the tents. I was rather unimpressed with the reservoir itself, but the area around it is definitely worth exploring. Eric and I hurried off as soon as we could to do just that. Along Tarryall road we stopped at Colorado's first geocache, then drove down some dirt trails to an old mine shaft.

ATV trails south of Tarryall

Circling the reservoir, we found our way into 11 Mile Canyon and a cache brought us on top of an old train tunnel for some magnificent views. Back at the reservoir again, we found the scenic Midland Trail for a sunset hike.

Old railroad tunnels in the canyon

The *very* scenic part of the reservoir

July 3
We all headed to Colorado Gators in the morning. Apparently the main use for the gators are as garbage disposals for the fish farm, but there sure are a lot of gators just for that. It's interesting they don't tape the gators mouths shut when handing them to tourists like they do in Australia.

At Colorado Gators with Eric's family

Don't worry, I held one too

At the Sand Dunes we set up tents, then Eric and I ran off to the dune field with the metal detector! Mostly we found bobby pins, but there were also some rusty screws.

Metal detecting on the Sand Dunes

A very rusted nail

Eric on the Dunes at sunset

July 4
Eric and I set out early for the short hike to Zapata Falls. You do have to wade a bit to see the falls itself. We also went up the trail quite a ways for some views of the dunes.

Zapata Falls - copyright Michael Carlson Photography

View of the Dunes and Sangre De Cristo mountain range

For the midday heat, we geocached in Alamosa, and drove through the wildlife refuge. There were some incredible dust devils in the area, and I never knew they got so strong or went so high! We found a network of dirt roads for an abandoned or never-built neighborhood, and went dust devil chasing. There were more vortices than I've seen all storm chase season, and we even went for a few intercepts.

Now that is one strong dust devil

Alamosa Fireworks for the 4th of July

July 5
Instead of going directly back to I-25 in the morning, our sights were set on the ghost town of St Elmo, west of Buena Vista. We drove just a little ways up the easy part of Tincup Pass for a geocache and some scenery.

St. Elmo ghost town

Tincup Pass

Stormchasing 2011

I joined Eric and Michael Carlson on three more chases for the 2011 season, and we still didn't get any tornadoes. Nonetheless, there were some cool cloud structures and I ended up with several neat photos. Being very new to this hobby, I think I was less disappointed with the lack of tornadoes than both Eric and Michael!

June 1
Emily was super excited to go on a real chase with us since Denmark's weather hardly compares to what we have here. The target was between La Junta and Las Animas. The main cell we followed was looking good for awhile, then fell apart out of nowhere. Nothing else really happened after that, so we headed back home early. Still, Emily thought it was fun to see what it's like to be in a real stormchasing vehicle!

This was the height of the excitement

Eric and Michael watching the storm die off

June 19
A north east Colorado day with high potential. Spent some time on a storm up North in the Pawnee Grasslands before going back to Fort Morgan in search of something better. We tried to catch up with a gigantic supercell out East, but gave up shortly after passing the Nebraska border as it was still too far away and getting dark. Back in Fort Morgan we stopped at some strange low clouds nearby. It had no recognizable structure in the mess, but we barely caught a glimpse of a land spout for a few seconds at dusk.

Nothing happened until after noon.  But I made friends with some locals.

Michael and Pawnee Grasslands storm

Large cell growing on the Nebraska border

June 25
There was an excellent setup in Nebraska / South Dakota, and we were just desperate enough to go that far! The first day had some decent clouds but nothing great, and was primarily just driving to get into position for the exciting 'moderate' outlook on the 26th. We camped overnight in Chadron State Park, which put us in perfect position in the morning! Nice place, but the best part was the fireflies.

Michael and Eric near Alliance, NE

A few neat storms in the afternoon

On the way to Chadron, NE

Cells started firing as early as 9 am. We eventually followed the storms over to Valentine and the main event happened around 1 pm. A lot of chasers were disappointed that the huge cell turned outflow dominant, but I was pretty excited with the photos I got and amazed with how green the cloud was. Everyone began migrating towards a new and very good looking cell East of Thedford, but it fell apart rather early. Went down to North Platte and headed for home by late afternoon.

The most interesting storm I've seen so far

Outflow dominant storm near Valentine, NE.  A favorite photo of the season.

South Dakota

My good friend Emily was visiting from Denmark for a few weeks this summer. I told her we could go on a real American road trip anywhere she wanted. Where to? Mount Rushmore and South Dakota!  The trip was 7 days, 2,000 miles, and ended up being only $200 each.
We had no plans, no reservations, and tons of fun!

May 25
Eric, Emily, and I left on the 25th. We drove up to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and made a side trip to see the state capitol. Just for amusement. Wasn't hard to spot since it looks so much like Colorado's with the gold dome. Most interesting part is there's all sorts of free parking right next to it. Quite the unpopulated state.

Wyoming state capitol

Later we drove through Lusk, and on to Custer, South Dakota, and spent the next three days in a tipi. Awesome and unique, but cold!

The Tipi

May 26
Went down to tour Wind Cave, then drove back up through Custer State Park. Probably one of the most amazing state parks ever.
Next was Mt. Rushmore! ...then Custer State park again!

Mt. Rushmore

Custer State Park

That evening we 'attempted' to make snobrød over the fire. It's basically Denmark's version of a campfire tradition, like American s'mores. But instead, it's a bread you wrap around sticks. And we had some measuring difficulties... not nearly enough flour.

Needs more flour... A LOT more flour

May 27
Went to Bear Country USA in the morning, which is basically a drive-through wildlife park or zoo. They're most famous for the huge collection of bears, which live in the same pen as the wolves. The two species weren't always getting along real well, and it took awhile to get past all the bears pacing in front of the exit.

Drive slow!

Little black bears everywhere

We later headed to Hill City, and had lunch at the Bumpin Buffalo Bar and Grill. Quite American, and really good.
Afterward, Eric had the joy of driving down Iron Mountain Road, and through the pennicles side of Custer State park. Did I mention what a great park it is?

Iron Mountain Road

Custer State Park... again!

Later that night we stopped by the store and got some ingredients to have a dinner of snobrød (success!) and hotdogs over the fire.

Now this is what snobrød should look like

May 28
Emily's last request in the Black Hills was the Alpine Slide, which opened for the summer the morning we left!

Up to the Alpine Slide

Off to the badlands. Having no reservations the whole trip, we were a little iffy about camping in the park since it was so cold the night before, so the next option we found was an original homestead from the 1880's. It was rustic, but really cool. We would have stayed there if it weren't for the forecasted below 0 temp and lots of rain, the car probably would've gotten stuck down there with all the rain we did get.

No pluming, no heating, quite original

We checked out the only other option nearby, the KOA. Their small huts were the same price, and they had cheap food there as well as minigolf! Good deal.

Mini Golf

Headed into the badlands that evening for an amazing sunset.

Badlands at Sunset

May 29
If the weather was more bearable we would have spent more time in the Badlands, but as it was we moved onwards. At the touristy 1880's town we had breakfast in an old train car, and Emily enjoyed the museum.

Off to see the sights of middle America

We headed down to Valentine, Nebraska, and drove around Niobrara to find Emily a waterfall. While there we decided Nebraska wasn't an interesting enough drive home. So, how about we go to Kansas? Being a spontaneous decision, we got to Hays by 1am, then stayed up even later to watch Twister!

Emily and her waterfall

May 30
Spent the day doing some geocaches in Russell. It was pretty interesting since we didn't have time to do any Russell ones while Eric and I were there over spring break. Much larger town than I ever thought, and it has an actual downtown area! Though its main attraction is being the boyhood home of Bob Dole.

Russell has a downtown!  And a museum!

There was an amazing wind and it was extremely hot and humid all day. Completely opposite from South Dakota. The sunset over a wheat field was really amazing, and as the evening storms developed, Eric brought us on a mini-storm chase on the way back. Emily was fascinated by the storms, though a little frightened at first. She said even those daytime winds would have been severe weather for Denmark.

Re-visiting a favorite photo location

Sunset in Kansas.  It's really not such a bad state!

The storm approaches

May 31
Eric's brother offered to take us all on a storm chase the next day, so we left Russell a day early.