A Nod to Nothing: Vacation: Rocky Mountain National Park (aka more mountains and rivers and rocks)

There are almost 80 pictures in the set from Rocky Mountain National Park, so if you need to see some, including semi-duplicates which I usually delete but kept a few of for my wife in case there were different perspectives of her and Eryn near the river she preferred, head over to Flickr. If you follow my wife, wait for her to finally find her power cord, pull her photos from her camera, and upload those. I think she has thousands, including several hundred of what probably deer, though we had a spirited discussion debating it because they certainly weren't your white-tailed, Minnesota variety. But I've learned never to worry about someone else's digital photos. Therein lies insanity.

I read an article once by a wife who thought it was the height of romance that her husband organized all her digital photos for her: labeling, foldering, getting them online, organizing them into some sort of romantic I-hope-I-get-laid-for-all-this-work montage. To him I say, you are a chump. You'll be doing that forever. Because now when you don't do it, you obviously love her less. Obviously. Even when she doesn't state it. It's like being the guy to take care of the family and friend computers - once you fix one, you're doomed. The best you can hope for is to figure out how to have fun doing something else while you reformat, delouse, and reinstall everyone's machine. Perhaps that's when said husband organized his wife's pile of digital crap.

Here's a picture of some cairns, search for "out of control". It's amusing. They look nice here. Add some verticality to my photo.

Here's another picture of the cairns. See it there to the right, but before the big rock? To the right of Jen. She lost her sunglasses right there. Lost them good. I set everything loose I owned aside and dug around in the cold water until I worried I'd tumble in head first. Antilitterati.org.

Eryn and Jen posing in the mountains.

Scooter! Scooter! This is not what people want when they ask you to take their picture! She said the water was very very cold.

We found a lake to walk around. When we got to exactly the other side, it started to rain. But at least it was far away from the two foreign tourists who smelled like they'd tried to sample every strain in Colorado. Beautiful area. Lots of snakes.

NOT a cairn. Just some random rock giving a big f-you to the mountainscape because there's always one crab in the crowd.

The path to the Roger Wolcott Toll memorial rock. That one that looks like a mushroom is not it. It's sort of to the left. While Jen and Eryn were taking lots of photos of deer/not deer, I was hoofing it up to the memorial way back down a trail. It was much further than I originally thought, so I jogged back at 11,000 feet or so for 1/2 a mile to make sure I didn't keep them waiting too long. People you jog past at 11,000 feet think you're a nutjob. I took a picture of this side path because I thought the area looked like the place Conan (the Arnold Conan, not the Momoa Conan) and his posse circled up to defend themselves against the Serpent Emperor and his nasty heart-piercing live snake arrows. No snake arrows here. Not even a snake. Bit cold for them I think. But I jumped around for a while pretending I had a big sword and making Arnold faces and yelling so someone would have a chance at the world's highest meme.

The memorial rock. There's a compass-type plaque on the top. I took a young couple's picture up there because they were going to go home with separate photos of themselves with a scenic rocky mountain backdrop. "Hey, remember when we went to The Rocky Mountains and you took this picture? And then I took this picture? I organized them for you so you know I love you." That's right, he has ONE LESS PICTURE TO ORGANIZE! My micro-contributions to the sanity of the world will go unlauded unless I document them myself.

I think this is my favorite picture from vacation, and the reason I follow random trails even if it's a lot of exercise.

ARGH, WHY DIDN'T I RENT A BIKE?! One interpretation would be that not renting or bringing a bike made it possible not to type here, "I failed so miserably at climbing 12,000 feet on my bike. I had to bail somewhere around 3,000 feet." It's cool he biked to the top, although he should have lugged that thing a few hundred feet up the trail behind the store to the very top of the mountain so he could say he made it all the way. Stairs be damned. Props, man. I think this looks like a hell of a lot of fun, dropping dead from acute mountain sickness be damned.

From next to the gift shop. Not as much snow as Glacier National Park, but still pretty cool to see it up there when it was so warm 7,000 feet below. Lot of marmots running around nearby. The goth group hanging out on the overlook realized they acted like the dramatic chipmunk and mimicked them for twenty minutes. Marmots acting like dramatic chipmunks, funny. Goth guys imitating marmots acting like dramatic chipmunks, not.

The hills are alive, with the sound of muuuu-sic, with songs Scooter has sung, for a thous-and yeaaars! The hills fill Scooter's heart, with the sound of muuuuu-sic, his heart wants to sing every song it hears.... Next, I do I am 16, going on 17...

The tip top, up all the stairs that were vanquishing little children who would collapse to the stones in tears and complaints and groans. Carry me! Carry me! Oh, Daddy, carry me!

A picture of the valley. It was nice to just lean against the stone rail for a while and listen to the wind and feel the cool breeze, all Nausicaa like. Think about it for a while, and then imagine that silence shattered by dramatic chipmunk goths. See? Uber annoying. F-you peaceful, idyllic nature. Somewhere down there is a rock flipping you off and somewhere up here are oxygen-deprived giddy goths about to laugh themselves unconscious from a seven year old meme.