Who would have thought we would end up at the ER?

We're way behind in getting travel posts published because we were having way too much fun traveling! So we won't be confused about when each "wandering" happened, we'll start each blog with its actual date.

August 15, 2023

We've been in Colorado many different times and in many different places. But one of the places that we had never been to was a hospital emergency room. (But we'll keep you in suspense about that until the end of the blog.) Another place that we had never visited was Fairplay, Colorado. It's a 45-minute drive from our campground, so we decided to take a road trip. On the way, we had a hike planned. It was a six-mile drive down a bumpy rocky dirt road to get to the trail head at Horseshoe Campground. We had our eyes wide open because we had read that a female moose and her calf had been hanging around here. Sure enough, we talked to a camper that reported this pair had made appearances several times since they had arrived two days ago. But we didn't see any moose. We've been bam-moosled again!

The Limber Grove Trail takes off right where the moose had last been seen. So we hurried up the shaded trail through the forest in hopes of a sighting. After a mile we had only seen moose poop, but no moose. But our forested trail opened up to a big rocky landscape.

That's when we got our first view of the Limber Grove.

The majority of the trees here are limber pines, named because of their flexible branches. But the special thing about this particular grove was that most of the trees were around 1,000 years old.

We think that a 100-year-old tree is old. But this was a one with three zeroes behind it. That very old tree will probably be twisted and gnarled after 1,000 years. The sign at the beginning of the grove states, "These trees have been shaped by lightning, fire, screaming winter winds, blowing snow, ice, below-freezing temperatures, and drought."

They only grow at very high altitude, so they grow slowly because of the very short growing season up here over 10,000 feet. This was rocky ground with poor nutrients, but the trees continue to survive.

We love the beautiful colors inside these ancient trees.

Mark loves to climb on trees almost as much as he loves to climb on rocks. But that's not the reason we ended up at the emergency room.

The information signs in the forest explained that limber pines have flexible branches, and their long needles grow in bundles of five. They grow pine cones that are 3-10 inches long and have thick, rounded scales.

This grove also includes a few very old bristlecone pines. They were identified by tufts of needles that were arranged on a thick stout branch so the tree looks like a bunch of baby bottle brushes. Another description was they look like fox tails, so they were sometimes called foxtail pines.

You'll only see these two pines at high altitudes. We started at over 10,000 feet in elevation, and continued hiking up to around 11,000 feet.

After taking way too many tree pictures, we continued the hike to the other end of the trail and another trail head. We could turn around and go back the way we came, but we love a good loop hike. So we decided to walk back to the pickup on that rocky dirt road. That took us by some prime moose habitat, but we weren't lucky enough to see one this day. We did see dozens of intricate beaver dams constructed on the creek below the road. But no wildlife pictures because we didn't see any beavers either.

It was while we were hiking, that Mark started having a pain in his chest. This wasn't a difficult hike by our usual standards, but that pain on the left side of his chest wouldn't go away. We drove into the town of Fairplay, where we ordered a sandwich and ate it at a nice covered picnic table overlooking the river. Our plan was to explore this little town and then take another hike. But that pain in his chest persisted. When Mark started googling medical clinics in Fairplay, Denisa got a little excited. We stopped in at the community clinic, and got to talk to a nice nurse practitioner that saw us right away. She told us that she could take an EKG and draw some blood for a heart test, but all of that would have to go through the parent hospital for results. That hospital is an hour's drive away in Salida. So her advice was to go there for quicker results.

After consulting with our physician son, and our physician assistant daughter-in-law, and our cousin that is a nurse at the Salida hospital, we headed that way. We arrived at the emergency room at the Heart of the Rockies Hospital in Salida around 2:30.

Within four minutes we were in an emergency room and they were starting the EKG. When you enter a hospital emergency entrance and announce that you are having chest pains, things happen pretty fast. They gave him four baby aspirins as the fastest and safest preventive medicine, and they started an IV. They drew blood, and they did a chest X-ray. Then we waited for results while Mark's chest started feeling better. 

It took a couple hours to get all the results, but everything came back very good. His EKG was normal, the chest X-ray was good. They were testing him for promotine in his blood--which is an enzyme released in the blood if your heart is stressed. He had zero promotine. His other blood work was perfect. So they found no problems with Mark's heart, and sent us home. Perhaps it was the high elevation today, but we have been hiking at high altitude on strenuous hikes for the last couple weeks. Why would Mark feel bad today on this easy hike? We'll never know. As we left the emergency room, a pair of twin fawns were hanging out with their mother in the grassy area next to the hospital.

For all the beautiful places we went today, who would have thought that our wildlife picture of the day would be taken in a hospital parking lot?

We went back to the motor home to take it easy for the rest of day. When we left the motor home this morning, who would have thought we would end up at the ER?

The most beautiful day kayaking Twin Lakes

We're way behind in getting travel posts published because we were having way too much fun traveling! So we won't be confused about when each "wandering" happened, we'll start each blog with its actual date.

August 14, 2023

We made a list of hikes, a list of drives, and a list of kayak trips we hoped to do while we were spending a month near Buena Vista, Colorado. We had already tried to kayak at Twin Lakes, but the wind was whipping the water into white caps that day. So we looked for a forecasted calm wind day, and we hoped we found it. Because the wind always picks up in the afternoon, we were up early. It was 46 degrees and the mountains were covered in clouds when we made the 20-mile trip to Twin Lakes.

With low clouds and no sun, it looked more like winter, rather than the middle of August. But we started inflating the kayak anyway. The Twin Lakes lay right at the base of the tallest mountain in Colorado. We looked up to see that the tip of Mount Elbert's summit was in the sunshine.

We were on the water by 8:00 a.m., and we both had our jackets on under our life preservers. The clouds were beginning to lift off the top of the mountains that ring these lakes, and when we started the water wasn't quite as smooth as we hoped it would be.

We started in the west (smaller) twin lake, and headed east toward the rising sun. A narrow channel connects the two lakes, and we paddled through it into the east (larger) twin lake. That's when it felt like the weather changed for the better. The clouds started breaking up, and we finally got warmed up in the sunshine.

We paddled along the edge of this bigger lake, just like we had done in 2020. And just like in 2020, we saw a large bird perched in a dead tree at the edge of the lake.

Could it be the same osprey that we saw in 2020 in the same tree?

We also saw the osprey nest in a nearby pine tree. But we saw no movement, and no little osprey heads popped up.

The wind had completely stopped, and the glassy water of the east twin lake was reflecting the trees and the Sawatch Mountains and the clouds. We had wandered into another of God's wonders!

This was a big lake! It is 13.7 miles around, and we like to boat all the way around a new lake. As we look east toward the rising sun, we could see the mirror-like reflection all the way to the far edge of the water and the Mosquito Mountains.

Our destination was on the south side of the lake where some historical buildings were being restored. 

We beached the kayak on the shore . . .

and walked to the Dexter Cabin.

Mr. Dexter was a mining millionaire from Leadville, and he had this cottage built for his family in 1895. He loved wood paneling, and he had expensive wood brought from the East Coast to form striped floors and walls.

Even the bathroom was striped, and had all the latest conveniences of the late 1800's. That included a metal bath tub.

The house was  left unlocked for self-guided tours. So we let ourselves in to explore all the way to the little room on the third floor. We had to climb a very narrow staircase to get there.

But then we had views of the lakes and mountains all around us.

Mr. Dexter also bought the hotel beside the lake, and turned it into a world-class resort that he named Inter-laken for "the land between the lakes."

At one time it included a billiards hall, grand pavilion, a stable, and gardens. It advertised hot and cold water baths, and a table supplied with the best in the market. One of the most impressive features was the six-sided privy that had leather seats and was divided into private booths.

Visitors are free to walk among the buildings and explore, and we were the only ones there at 9:30. An old log barn was also close to the water because the lakes are larger than they used to be. The lodge and the Dexter cabin were both moved roughly 150 feet to higher ground because their original sites are now under water.

After that nice hike, we were back in the kayak and headed into new territory. We had read that the far eastern side of the big lake had some coves and protected water lanes. We had planned to load up the kayak and drive to this far edge. But as still as the water was, we decided to just paddle there.

It's around three miles away, but the water was so still and flat that we could see all the way to the other end. We were blessed with the prettiest kayaking day of the summer, and we were the only boat on these two big lakes.

At 10:30, we spotted the first movement on the water. A group of three kayaks were heading towards us. We can't believe that we have had all this beauty to ourselves this long.

Occasionally, we would turn the kayak around to look back to the west. This is the Sawatch Range of the Rocky Mountains, that includes many of the tallest mountains in the Rockies.

In fact, the mountain on the right is Mount Elbert. At 14,439 feet in elevation, it is the tallest mountain in the Rocky Mountains (as well as the tallest in the state of Colorado).

When we turned the kayak to the east, we were looking at the Mosquito Range. These mountains start on the other side of the Arkansas River, and they are volcanic mountains that are not as tall as the Sawatch Mountains.

We paddled all the way to the rock dam on the east side on the Twin Lakes. By this time we had been on the water for three hours.

We paddled around some of the protected coves, but we noticed that the wind had picked up a little. We were as far away from our pickup as we could possibly be. Was it going to get windy so that we would have to struggle to get back?

As we got closer to the shore, we spotted the osprey in the tree again.

We headed back west towards the pickup and the bigger Sawatch Mountains. We had a new phone app that can identify the mountains around us, so we put it to the test. We were surrounded by mountains and it seemed to know all of them. We took a screen shot that shows the names of the mountains that we were enjoying today, as well as their elevation.

If we look to the north and further away from the lake, we could see the second tallest mountain in Colorado--Mount Massive. And if you look very carefully, you will see the tip of Mount Oklahoma. Who knew that such a flat state had a 13,848 foot mountain named after it?

The wind completely stopped once again, and we realized that we weren't going to struggle to row back to the pickup. So we spent more time enjoying the views and taking way too many pictures. It's a rare treat for such a large lake to be so still that it mirrors the clouds and mountains so perfectly. Over and over we uttered phrases like "This is so beautiful!" and "What a blessing!" and simply "Wow!" Have we mentioned that we have wandered into another of God's wonders?

We rowed all the way across that big lake, and once again through the channel to the smaller twin.

While our plan was to get back to the dock, now we decided to row all the way around the smaller west lake too. This brings us closer to those tall Rocky Mountains. So of course, Denisa is taking more pictures. The tops of the highest peaks are above tree line, so they have rocky tops. 

We noticed that the sides of the mountains are covered with an interesting combination of aspens and pines.

This lake was beautiful in August. But it would be stunning in late September when all the aspen trees turn to gold. We read that both lakes will ice over from December to May. It would be lovely to see the Twin Lakes in their winter icy finery as well.

Around noon we beached the kayak again so we could stretch our legs. We've been paddling for over four hours now--much longer than we had planned.

Mark took the kayak out for some rare photos of him paddling by himself.

We were hoping for some wildlife sightings on the lake. Besides lots of fish in the clear water beneath us, the only wildlife spottings were several groups of Canadian Geese.

The water was perfectly clear in both lakes. It usually looks green or blue depending on its depth. But as we approached the far edge of the upper lake, the water was so shallow that it was reflecting the yellow sand bottom.

We paddled up a couple dead end inlets before we finally found the creek that feeds the Twin Lakes. We paddled up the creek as far as we could.

Then we beached the kayak and walked up the creek until we ran out of dry ground.

One of us kept walking even after he ran out of dry shoreline.

The other wanderer stayed on the shore, taking pictures of lovely pink blooms that enjoy the extra moisture at the water's edge.

At this point, we were very close to the tiny village of Twin Lakes, even though we couldn't see the buildings of the town because of all the trees. We'll be back in this area in a few days to see the town at the base of the mountains.

What a beautiful day we had on the Twin Lakes! We had planned to spend a couple hours here this morning. But we had been there 6 hours by the time we got the boat out of the water. This might go down as a record for us--we paddled 11.7 miles. That's a lot of paddling on a flat lake! But it was the most beautiful day kayaking Twin Lakes!