Front Range, Rocky Mountains

In the past few days we crossed the praries of Nebraska and then dropped down through northwest Kansas and across Colorado on US-36.

We were headed for my buddy Dave's house near Monument.

Along the way we stopped at Massacre Canyon. It was the site of the last major battle between the Pawnees and the Sioux. 

A much larger group of Sioux warriors ambushed about 700 Pawnees, who thought they were under the protection of the U.S. Government. By the time the Calvary got there, the damage was done.

The Pawnees were so dispirited by the massacre they moved to Oklahoma.

Looking up Massacre Canyon. Most of the fighting took place about 2 miles up the canyon. They moved the monument to its current location back when they moved the highway.

The cactus were all in full bloom.

Massacre Canyon Monument

Ominous skies all day. We never got more than a few sprinkles though. Sometimes we could see it raining up high but it didn't reach the ground.  Sometimes it looked like it was pouring hard but when we got there nothing but wet pavement. 

When we finally reached the edge of the Denver metroplex, we stopped for fuel just as a squall hit. I was thinking about getting the winter gear back out, standing there freezing in my short sleeves with the cold wind blowing the rain sideways.

Later we learned that there had been hail in many of the storms we were watching.

However in a couple hours we had blue skies and a nice campsite up on Monument Hill.

The next night we stayed at Dave and Diedre's driveway.  Dave grilled some rib eyes with bakers and broccoli. We also had blanched asparagus wrapped with salami and cream cheese.

Great food and great conversation with new friends. It was enhanced by sharing a bottle of Chopin before dinner and a couple of lovely reds with dinner.

We finished by driving up the front range as far as Douglas Wyoming. 

Our 3 speed flat land RV got pretty warm on the climb up to the high prairies. We had to stop a couple of times and let her catch her breath.

We camped in Douglas for the night. I went over to get a better view of the sunset and met the Jack Rabbit. I didn't have Wurstchen so he barely acknowledged me and just kept watching  the sunset.

This is what we were looking at.

This place claims to be the home of the Jackalope but I think there's this other place down the road that would differ on that. It's a place called Wall.