On our way up to Rocky Mountain National Park we stopped at a place called the Dam Store.  This gift store was not your normal gift store.  Yeah it had the t-shirts, post cards, key chains, and rocks, but it also had jerky.  Now this jerky wasn’t your standard beef jerky.  You could also buy buffalo, venison, pheasant, alligator, kangaroo, and other strange types of jerky.  While we were buying some buffalo jerky the woman at the counter told us that the two most beautiful states in the US were Colorado and Oregon.  After seeing Rockey Mountain National park and the foot hills in our front yard, I tend to think she was right.

While traveling through the park I was awestruck by the monstrosity of every towering peak in front of us.  It turns out that the road we were traveling on is the highest consecutive road in all the United States.  At these elevations trees stop growing and only a thin layer of grass is present, we were driving through the TUNDRA!  It was kinda weird to think that we were driving above the elevation of mount hood!  The air was certainly thinner and I felt slightly nauseated any time we hiked up little hills.  Quite a beautiful place.  Next trip is to Mt. Evans, where you can drive to the top:  14,264 ft!

The weather here is something else…  We have had really hot weather, really cold weather, hail the size of peas, lightning, thunder, windy, everything under the sun.  The weather here keeps life interesting, thats for sure!

I hope all of you guys can make it to Colorado to check this place out.  It has been pretty fun living here and being a tourist at the same time.  I’m looking forward to school starting on Monday.  I’m actually enrolled in a weather prediction class.  Now maybe I will actually know what I’m talking about when I forcast weather!  OSU taught about 2-3 courses per term, here they teach about 10-15, so I think I will get a quality education here.

Until next time,

-Matt