Sunday, November 14, 2010

Rocky Mountain Arsenal Tour

This weekend the folks and I headed out to celebrate mom's birthday. We went north to Denver with a stop at Stash in Castle Rock so she could see this yarn shop. It was trying to snow while we visited, however moved south without creating any accumulation that would impede our plans.

We had a great dinner at the Outback Steakhouse and stayed at the La Quinta at the airport. Nice room, great breakfast and close to the entrance to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal.

In the morning we headed over to the visitor's center to take the tour with my friend, CatWithCats, as the tour guide. She has been doing this for ten years as a volunteer and does a great job of mixing the history of the arsenal with critter sightings and ID for the guests.

We saw bufffalo, lots of deer - both mulies and whitetail, hawks and a pair of bald eagles, coyotes and a plethora of prairie dogs. It was a beautiful day and a great way to see the clean up job they have done at this location. It was hard to imagine the industry that went on here during WWII since the majority of buildings have been razed and covered in a huge landfill that the prairie, with help from the Wildlife Service, is reclaiming.

It is well worth the time to go see this new additon to the wildlife preserves in the state. I hope everyone will add this to their list of things to see and do in Colorado~!

1 comment:

Cathy R said...

Hey... that's ME!! You got some great photos, I especially like the one of the formerly-mystery bird.

He really stumped me the previous week and it took several days with bird books to figure out what he was...