From the second floor window of the administrative office of the repertory theatre in Grand Lake, I look out the window to the alley across the street where we played catch with the football at the first family reunion back in 1985. As I recall, Joanie was hucking it and we were taking turns going deep. Leatherwood was the name of the lodge. Grand Lake is still Grand Lake.
Newsflash!
We got through an entire click-it-or-ticket weekend; a three hundred mile drive; without a single traffic violation; not a single unrestrained wife.
Grand lake
Our camp.
Grand lake
I shouldn’t like the Steamboat RV Park as much as I do. It’s an old KOA; probably doesn’t meet their standards anymore. It’s a funky place. Lot’s of old rigs with people living in them as “affordable” housing. Back-to-back sites. Basically, a trailer park. But boy is it loaded with birds… and trees… and flowers. The Yampa River flows right through it, with an old bridge across the river to tent camping sites on the other side. I can make a circuitous walk following every road and every loop that takes about half an hour to do one lap. But that’s it for Steamboat. There is a repertory theatre in Grand Lake that needs attention. We worked at the coach in the morning, left by eleven, had lunch at the top of Rabbit Ears Pass (our third time over that pass in the last ten days), drove down to Kremmling, and followed the Colorado River northeast to Grand Lake, the western portal to Rocky Mountain National Park. We’re high here, 8,500 feet, and rugged. The RV Park has streams all through it, and sites cut into the willows and forest. It’s like a forest service park, (which we have generally sized ourselves out of), but we can fit here, and it has full hookups! What a fun place to be. Our first walk outside the coach, we found ourselves within ten feet of a yearling moose, standing on the other side of a willow, munching his way through the bush towards us. Hummingbirds, juncos, moose, a red fox crossed the trail within three feet of me. Yes. This is where we want to be.
Steamboat
We’re back with the orioles. Orioles are common here. The local stores recognize that and even sell a specific oriole feeder. It’s like a big hummingbird feeder, except it has orange food in it, and a big picture of an orange on it. Orioles like oranges. We know because last time we were here, we put out a big slice of orange on the bird feeder, and the oriole used to fly right over and stand next to it while contemplating how best to get at the hummingbird feeder and get all that yummy hummingbird food. But this trip is different. We now have the oriole feeder on the bird feeding rack. The oriole feeder looks really good there, hanging from the bird feeder rack while the oriole feeds from the little hummingbird feeder on the window.