Sleeping Elephant
Campground. After leaving the Ft Collins
Metro area we drive the scenic route up Highway 14 along the Poudre River heading
for Dinosaur National Monument. We camp at
Sleeping Elephant, a small, peaceful Forest Service campground with no
occupants and we have it all to ourselves. The sites are small, made for tents
or pickup campers, and our Sprinter fits in easily. It’s nice to be able to
camp just about anywhere. If an elephant could get a good night sleep here so
could we.
You’d wonder about the name of the campground until you look
across the canyon at Sleeping Elephant Mountain. 
Rabbit Ears Pass.
Before we get to Steamboat Springs we stop at Rabbit Ears Pass to take a hike.
It’s wildflower season in the Rockies and here are some of Colorado’s fine
bouquets. 
Dinosaur National
Monument. Our first night at Dinosaur was at Deer Lodge, a primitive campground
along the Yampa River, the ultimate in peace and solitude. It’s reached by a
12-mile paved road but aside from rafting groups few people seem to go there. The
campsites are walk-in for tenting so we camped in the gravel parking lot on the
bank of the river and watched Great Blue Heron, Sand Hill Cranes, nighthawks
and owls.
The next day we took a drive to Echo Park and were surprised to find ourselves at the center of the universe. If you’ve ever wondered, wonder no more, it’s here. A very beautiful place and the 25-mile drive really isn’t that far to get to the center of the universe. Take the 2-mile, round-trip, scenic hike at the end of the road.
Next we go to the main attraction of Dinosaur, the fossil
quarry. The most complete fossils have
been removed over the last century but what remains is amazing. The skull of a
Camarasaurus looks down at us. He seems like the friendly sort. The wall is a
mass of jumbled fossil bones, impressive in their size and quantity. You can
even touch them.
We camped at the Monument’s Green River Campground and went
to a star party later in the night. Instead of driving to the closed campground
where the event was, we hiked with flashlights the one-mile trail along the
river that the ranger told us about. It was a primitive trail, we had no idea
where we were going to end up, and there were no lights at the campground to guide
our way. After all, it’s a star party. A mile sure seems a lot longer in the
dark and after some stumbling around we think we’re almost there when we bump into
the ranger. She saw our lights bobbing around and thought she’d better come get
us. Guess she rethought the idea of sending some old folks off into the night
on a rugged desert hillside. It was a nice event; the night was warm and calm.
We looked though the telescopes at nebulas and enjoyed the fabulous Milky Way
and immense star fields from one of the darkest places in the country. Then we
hike back to our campground with our flashlights happily bobbing along and
having more fun knowing where we were going. One doesn’t often take the
opportunity for a midnight hike.
Flaming Gorge. The next two nights we spent at Flaming Gorge
in the Greens Lake CG. These photos were taken at the overlook at Canyon Rim
Visitor Center. We got in a long bike ride on Hwy 191 to Grizzly Ridge, which
actually turned out to be a great ride because it had good shoulders and
beautiful mountain scenery. 
Sinks Canyon. On
the way to Yellowstone we take a detour to Sinks Canyon near Lander, WY. It’s a
place where the Popo Agie River flows into a cave, the entire river swallowed
up by the mountain. 
A ¼ mile down the canyon the river reappears as a deep pool
and continues its surface flow. 
The pool below the observation deck is filled with very large trout that are just waiting for you to buy fish food from a vending machine. You won’t be able to resist. Watch them swim around for a while and you’ll be buying fish food. They also have a nice visitor and wildlife education center. Well worth the trip.
We're behind on our posts because we don't often have a good broadband. We're on our way to Yellowstone via Thermopolis. Until our next connection. Jackie
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