Road trips, thanks to the closeness they enforce, can be a great way to facilitate conversations on life’s most meaningful topics, like how much wood a woodchuck would chuck and so forth. As we were eager to know all the particulars about woodchucks, Jason and I instigated a lengthy drive to Fort Collins, Colorado last summer. It was a boring drive with an excellent destination, which means it was typical of the road trip genre.

Fort Collins is Colorado’s 4^th-most populated city. Colorado State University is the city’s largest employer, and its research facilities have attracted multiple tech firms to the area. However, for tourists, Fort Collins’ downtown is much more of a draw than its research facilities. The streets of its sizeable, historic district are charming and contain ample dining and shopping options. (I’d recommend the chocolate shop Nuance.) Visiting downtown was first on our itinerary after arriving. Following a bit of browsing in its cute stores, what was beneath those shops, which was less cute, held our attention.

We joined a Fort Collins Ghost Tour and went below the streets to learn about the darker side (literally and figuratively) of the settlement’s early days. Underneath the oldest part of Fort Collins stretches a secret: the buildings are linked via a network of underground tunnels. I’ve found conflicting accounts on whether these tunnels were created for ordinary reasons like merchandise delivery or to facilitate the steam heating of the entire area. Whatever their purpose, they added an element of bizarreness to the already spooky subterranean spaces we visited.

Amongst these basements was the one belonging to the town’s original firehouse, which was built in 1881. The firehouse had an underground jail. Why underground? Its placement served to separate the diseases that flourished in its cramped quarters from the public and provide an undisturbed spot for solitary confinement. The prisoners’ morgue in the basement next door with its dirt ramp for body drop off and cold storage room for corpses was the creepiest part of the tour.

In contrast, the coolest part of the tour was the speakeasy found in the tunnels under the Northern Hotel during modern maintenance work, a leftover from the decades when alcohol was banned in Fort Collins. The old speakeasy had been blocked off shortly after its discovery for safety reasons, but the door to it was still swinging. Surprisingly, considering the current proliferation of breweries in Fort Collins, the alcohol prohibition era spanned much longer there than nationally, lasting from 1896 to 1969. The Northern Hotel was completed in 1873 and opened as the Northern in 1905, amid that prohibition. During its heyday it was frequented by celebrities like John Wayne, Vincent Price, and Franklin D. Roosevelt… and apparently, they got thirsty. In addition to all those mysterious spots, we also visited the Avery Building, which might be haunted by the ghost of businessman William Avery who might have been poisoned by his wife in 1890.

The next day, we moved our explorations to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. Rocky Mountain National Park is the 4^th-most-visited national park in the US due in large part to its proximity to Denver. In 2022, that equated to about 4,300,000 sightseers. As a result, you not only need an entry time reservation to get into the park between 9:00 AM and 2:00 PM but must obtain an additional reservation for the Bear Lake Road, if you want to access the area where a hefty share of the park’s most popular short hikes are located. Reservations for the Bear Lake Road can be particularly hard to come by. The overuse of the park has also impacted the staff. Many of the rangers we encountered were grouchy, probably from dealing with a surplus of confused idiots every day.

Miraculously, we were able to acquire a Bear Lake Road pass. Hence, we chose to hike 3.6 miles out-and-back to Nymph, Dream, and Emerald Lakes on one of the most trafficked trails in the park. As we were running out of time to complete this route before our next mystical rendezvous, those of us who wanted to go all the way to Emerald Lake needed to make the return 1.8 miles in 22 minutes. We managed to arrive back at the trailhead only five minutes late by running the entire way down and averaging about 13:30 per mile. Overall impression of Rocky Mountain on this visit? Beautiful as always but way too many people.

That evening, we upgraded from the natural to the supernatural on a ghost tour at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park per the request of some of the youngsters in the group. While about half of us had done this tour before, our guide this time made it a much scarier experience. She used the power of suggestion to alter perceptions and bring imagined sensations into reality. Still, the kids had a blast and were thrilled to try out their new spirit box.

Our hike the next day was much more satisfying than Rocky Mountain, despite its lesser renown. We traversed about 6.5 miles in the Horsetooth Mountain Open Space visiting Horsetooth Falls and the top of Horsetooth Rock, which has an elevation of 7,256 feet, via the Horsetooth Falls, Spring Creek, and Wathen Trails.

Our time in Fort Collins came to an end the next day and all that was left was the tedious drive home. During that drive, we stopped at the Wyoming Territorial Prison State Historic Site. Although this was intended to be a brief stop, we stayed for a couple hours and still didn’t get a chance to read most of the signs. If you find yourself in its vicinity, it’s a fun and informative place to take a break.

As a side note, it was pouring when we got to the prison and, oh yeah, our whole trip was very wet. We were rained on generously every day at some point, but we didn’t let that stop us- obviously.

Road trips are both exciting and tedious. Through them we encounter new wonders, develop techniques for staying alert in landscapes of never-ending sagebrush, and of course, learn how much wood a woodchuck would chuck. I’m not going to give you all the answers though; I’ll let you discover those on your own road pilgrimage.

Jason and I are all about experiencing life and sharing experiences with others. This ideology led to us giving our family members their choice of one of four activities in lieu of birthday presents in 2023. One of these options was a trip into Utah’s unconventional and under populated West Desert for some world-famous rock excavating. Eight of our family members chose this as their birthday activity and three others tagged along. The primary objective was trilobite fossils, but we found many other solid masses of significance. Here’s the scoop on our scooping.

We started this stone excursion with a stop in Eureka and nearby Silver City. Eureka was once Utah’s 9^th-largest city. It’s story of boom and bust is typical of any mining mecca, except the boom lasted for over a century. Once home to nearly 4,000 people, Eureka is now an interesting and colorful settlement of 650 hardy residents and many relics of the past. If you are passing through, I’d recommend checking out the historic brick buildings, Porter Rockwell’s cabin, and the Star Theater’s projection equipment from 1935. (The theater itself closed in 1958.) We also stopped at Crazy Mary’s Rock Shop in the Gatley Building, which was constructed in 1898. Mary kindly gave us a tour of the old structure including its 20-foot indoor well used for cooling purposes during the prohibition days.

From Eureka, we traveled to neighboring Silver City, a true ghost town. At one time, Silver City was home to a population of 1,500. From 1869 to 1915, it went from being a mining town to an ore sampling mill and smelter. After 1915, the mill closed, and by 1930 Silver City was mostly deserted. Massive concrete foundations with compartments, tunnels, arches, and towers are the principal remains at the location. We explored these and then headed up the road to the mouth of Dragon Canyon where the Dragon Mine still operates. Outside the gates of Dragon Canyon, we found a promising patch of dirt and started digging. There, we believe we found samples of hematite but plan on further analysis to confirm.

Long before the brief influx of miners, the West Desert was home to lasting residents, trilobites. Trilobites, one of Earth’s most successful lifeforms, evolved over 300 million years into more than 25,000 species. These sea-dwelling creatures flourished about 1,000 times longer than the entire span of current human existence.

Roughly an hour past Delta, an outcropping of Wheeler Shale containing some of the highest concentrations of trilobite fossils in North America was forced to the surface from thousands of feet below by warping and weathering. This remarkable layer is open to curious enthusiasts for personal excavation and fossil removal at U-Dig Fossils: Quarry. That was our destination the next day.

While trilobites survived for hundreds of millions of years, the trilobites at U-Dig are from just the Cambrian Period, 500-550 million years ago. A lot of fossils can develop over 50 million years though. They are prolific at the site, and no one walked away empty-handed.

We chipped and pried through rock in one of the quarry’s prehistoric pits from noon to a little after 5:30, almost closing time. At least, some of us did. You see, there was no rain in the forecast that day, but that didn’t stop it from raining. The showers started about 3:00 and continued the rest of the afternoon. The less resilient members of our group left early because they didn’t appreciate the soaking. Jason and I, along with a few others, kept at it and found some great specimens while chilled and water-logged.

The following day, we headed to Obsidian Hill in search of Apache Tears, which are rounded obsidian pebbles. We found them and a whole lot of jasper. Unfortunately, the gnats found us. I obtained at least thirty gnat bites that afternoon. Jason didn’t get nearly as many, but he got one inside his ear and couldn’t sleep that night because he was in so much pain. The origins of these gnats were a mystery as there didn’t seem to be any water or anything else of gnatty interest nearby.

Utah’s West Desert is a fantastic place to travel back in time 150 years or 550 million years. The oddities are plentiful in that parched expanse. If you have a curiosity about rocks or just an inquisitive mind, it might be time to take your own family on a West Desert, dirt-sleuthing experience.

As I mentioned in my last post, food and footpaths are primary attractions in Torrey. We couldn’t jump right onto a trail the instant we arrived, but we didn’t waste any time getting to the eating. That evening we dined at my favorite section of Hell. Hell’s Backbone Grill & Farm has been a beloved out-of-the-way dining location for us since we first discovered it about 15 years ago. The required 50-minute drive up Boulder Mountain is quickly forgotten when the Jenchiladas, Blue Ribbon Black-Powder Biscuits, blueberry bread pudding, and seasonal favorites hit the tongue. This time, those seasonal offerings included asparagus and peas from the Hell’s Backbone Farm. Delish! We loaded up past our max fill lines and then dodged black free-range cattle on the dark trip back to Torrey.

The next day, we hiked in Capitol Reef National Park on the Navajo Knobs Trail. The Navajo Knobs are a cluster of bumpy outcroppings at the tippy top of one of the park’s many plateaus. Hikers can bail halfway up this path to complete just the Rim Overlook or continue another 2.4 miles to reach the top. We weren’t sure how 2,400 feet of elevation change would go over with my testy, recovering knee. Hence, we’d settled on ending at that halfway point and only 1,110 feet of altitude variation. However, once we reached the Rim Overlook, I could tell we would decide to go all the way, 9.4 miles RT, knee aside. Why waste all the already-exerted effort?

Past the Rim Overlook, the route to the Navajo Knobs keeps mostly to cliff edges but rarely close enough to make the typical person nervous. (That includes me in this case!) Although the trail is almost exclusively uphill, the grade stays below 30% except during a short, final scramble up one of the knobs. While some guidebooks claim there are two knobs, that’s not true as there are a whole cluster of bulbous bulges of varying sizes protruding from the plateau top. The trail leads you up the westernmost one.

The views along this path were spectacular and alien even to us, Utah natives. The plateau traversed is not straight but noticeably angled, giving a greater appreciation for the wrinkled nature of the Waterpocket Fold, Capitol Reef’s defining geological feature. This lovely setting must be too strenuous for most as we saw just two people in total once we passed the Rim Overlook. I was okay with that.

It took us five hours and 40 minutes to complete the Navajo Knobs, which apparently is in the “normal” window. Also in our normal window is not making it back before dark. We were typical in that regard as well. We only needed flashlights for the last third of a mile though, and that’s better than our average.

For our last day in Capitol Reef, we decided to hike another route classified as strenuous, the Freemont Gorge Overlook, even though we’d pushed my knee and our legs in general the day before. (For the record, my knee handled the challenge with dignity and only a little swelling.) The path to the Fremont Gorge Overlook, according to the park’s trail guide, is identical in length and almost equivalent in elevation change to the Rim Overlook. Therefore, we were expecting another enduring uphill workout. Instead, we got ups on either end of a long section of level.

The route climbs one steep 300-foot hill and then kicks back for an extensive, nearly flat traverse across the meadow topping Johnson Mesa. Johnson Mesa’s crown is strewn with desert grasses and lava rocks spewed from Boulder Mountain 20-30 million years ago. Glaciers brought those giant stones to Capitol Reef at the end of the last ice age where they now look completely out of place. That curious meadow is followed by another long climb, about 700 feet in elevation.

The Fremont Gorge Overlook is about 4.5 miles RT. It took us a bit under three hours and required less energy than the Rim Overlook portion of the Navajo Knobs Trail, despite their supposed similarities in length and elevation change.

Please note, the Fremont Gorge Overlook has absolutely no shade on it. If you hike it in the summer, I’d highly recommend going early or late in the day. The other thing it had absolutely none of? People. We saw exactly no one on it, which made it all the better.

That sums up the Torrey piece of our desert extravaganza. The entire holiday pie was magnificent and memorable from its smallest corridors to its vastest vistas! I’ll end with one final comment on luck. Spring weather in Utah can be temperamental, but it was nearly ideal during our entire trip. It oscillated from the low 70s to the mid-80s and was almost always windy. It never got uncomfortably hot, but we did make use of jackets on occasion. The day we left, temperatures dropped down into the 50s, and it started raining. The luck of the slickrock was on our side!