Raesevelt: Lake City, CO

Our first day in Lake City! It's gorgeous here, but man is it out the way! Talk about the middle of nowhere. It's an old mining town settled right in the heart of the San Juan mountains.

We finally arrived at about 1:30am last night after a very creepy 40 mile drive on Colorado Highway 149. It's this long, serpentine two-lane highway that runs through the heart of the mountains. At night, there are big looming trees all around, and you are most likely to be theonly car on the road. No houses. No lights. Totally Texas chainsaw massacre.

Anyway, so we're going down this highway and we hear a thud. Under our car. "Ohmygosh ohmygosh I just hit a baby deer!" said Brock. "It jumped out in the middle of the road!" We turned around to go check it out and it ended up not being a deer, but the cutest, fluffiest bunny rabbit you've ever seen...and it was still moving. So we did we do? We put it out of its misery and ran over it again. Somebody call the PETA police!

So we're officially freaked out now and start watching the road intensely to keep an eye out for all the other little critters. All of a sudden, this huge owl swoops down right near our windshield. It was ridiculous! We all started screaming bloody murder. I bet the ghost of Fluffy called him up and asked him to seek revenge...

The drive after that was less eventful, with the exception of running into a few bugs every now and then. We did, however, rename our Camry the "Death Train."

After a good night's sleep we woke up and explored Lake City. That took all of about five seconds. Haha just kidding! First stop: the Alfred Packer Massacre Memorial. Charming, I know. As it turns out, this Packer guy was leading a group of people from Utah to Colorado, when they got caught in a terrible snowstorm. When they found Packer, his comrades were nowhere in sight but HE looked mighty healthy despite weeks of starvation.

Then they found the remains of human flesh in his pockets. Yes, cannibalism. There are five white crosses at this memorial that stand in memory of his...dinner. Of course, Packer has his own side of the story. Google it if you're interested!

We proceeded to go on a lovely drive through the mountains, and ended up at a lake where we attempted to fish. We could see the fish jumping, but--of course--we caught nothing. It was still tons of fun though!