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NATURE ALI'S
GRAND ADVENTURE - Day 6 - June 25, 2009
Stayed over
for a night to enjoy time with Brandon and Desiree. Brandon was up at dawn to
show me the Rocky Mountain Elk which fade back into the forest shortly after the
sun rises. Off we went toward Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument where a
herd of about 40 elk were grazing at the edge of the forest. Then we went for a
hike in the monument.
Florissant
Fossil Beds is a cool place with 34 million year old fossil redwoods and other
remnants of the past that fossilized quickly with the eruption of a nearby
volcano. Saw Richardson's Ground Squirrels and Nuttall's Cottontail along with
other species, was thrilled to see Williamson's Sapsuckers.
Left
Florissant for a quick 1430 mile drive to pick up my sister in Cleveland, OH. I
stopped to take photos of amazing clouds accenting fields of yellow flowers in
eastern Colorado. Then soon entered Kansas with amazing thunderstorms to the
north and south but clear sailing along I-70, Mother-Nature always seems to
clear a path for me.
Kansas is a
wonderful and beautiful state with many clean rest stops and lots of nature
along the way, I wandered through one of the rest stops just before sunset and
saw what I thought was a Baltimore Oriole which would have been a year bird… but
it turned out to be a rusty orange… a life bird instead… Orchard Oriole. I did
not find Kansas the flat uninterrupted landscape that had been described but an
undulating state with varied habitats. I will return to this state. I took a few
naps along the way and spent the night on the road in Eastern Kansas.
591 miles |
