Day 12 - Jewel Cave National Monument



300 feet underground and no light.  The entire cave was lined in jewel like crystals.


Relaxing in Sylvan Lake in the Black Hills.


Day 13 - Fort Laramie National Historic Site


The infantry mens barracks


The Officer's quarters.


Signature Wall on the Oregon Trail.  Families carved their names in the soft sandstone wall.


These ruts in the stone were caused by wagons traveling on the Oregon Trail in the mid 1800s.


Day 14 -  Rocky Mountain National Park


Still snow on the ground at 12,000 feet.


Elk by the side of the road


Going through our journals and having lunch at 12,000 feet.  We were interrupted by a Grizzly bear and had to move.  He ended up rolling down the mountain.


We moved to the Stanley Hotel, made famous by Steven King in the "Shining".


Here we were going through our journals and again interrupted but this time by a fox.  We didn't see any ghosts.

Extra Day 15 - Thanks to Thunderstorms closing JFK we got another day.


Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument.  One of the largest quarries of fossils in the world.  These are fossilized trunks of Giant Redwood trees from 34 million years ago.