Aug 16 later in am

I had been to Georgetown before but hadn't taken the scenic Rail Road.

Since I knew Ann likes this, we did it. There are other scenic railroads in the State, but I liked this because it is only a half hour from Georgetown to Silver Plume and then a half hour back (I don't like the smell of diesel or coal being burned and the rail cars are open air - some covered, some not covered).

The first image is us (with CocaCola Bear) on a small bridge over Clear Creek with the Rail bridge in the background.

The next image is as we are going over that bridge.

The next two images are from the rail car as it goes over Clear Creek Valley (this is on the Atlantic side of the Continental divide, Clear Creek flows into the Platte River).

The third image shows some dead trees. These are lodgepole pines which are suffering from the worst infestation of mountain pine beetles in history. There seems to be no way to stop the beetles and some people are trying to adjust to it (this site gives detail of the disease and the Proposed adjustment). Back about 2004, our part of the country was in near panic because some kind of insect was killing the dogwood trees but a few years later we had an anomalously wet summer and a type of fungus spread and killed the insects that were killing the dogwoods. Maybe something like this will happen. One more thing. It rained for part of the train trip.