Category: AP Readings
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The Icy Tundra of Rocky Mountain National Park
The first leg of the odyssey for a second year running was to Colorado to score AP World History essays. Before the grading, Jim and I went to Rocky Mountain National Park. Near the highest point on the road is the Tundra trail, at about 11,000 feet.You might have noticed that the name of the…
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Scoring AP essays
Unfortunately, hiking was not the main purpose of the trip; scoring AP World History essays was. Above is the Lory Student Center, where we graded essays. And graded essays, and graded more essays. And graded still more essays. While the process was honestly informative, there is something that happens to a person’s sanity after they…
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The Mines of Moria
There is good rock here. This country has tough bones! This makes more sense if you read it in your John Rhys-Davies dwarf voice. Trust me, it was freaking hilarious to us as we were stumbling around the mountains. Or maybe that was just the elevation sickness. On second thought, forget I said anything. This…
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What’s this?!
It’s a waterfall! With actual water! Compare that to the waterfall we saw in Shenandoah a few years back… This is the best-case scenario version of the above waterfall. Keep in mind that the waterfall had absolutely no water when we saw it. It was like the lizards from “V – The Final Battle” had…
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Rocky Mountain Low
Since one of the bridges we needed to cross was broken, Jim came up with the great idea of throwing our hiking poles across so that we could better keep our balance when crossing. Jim threw both of his across, and then… the worst throw in the world by me.In the air, the hiking pole…
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Is it a jackalope?!
No, it’s just an elk. The jackalope didn’t have the wherewithal of Jaws and didn’t follow us to Colorado. Of course, there were idiots who tried to walk up to the elk. I was rooting for the elk to react like this:
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Hiking
After last year’s disastrous hike, during which we hiked about a mile the wrong way through a field of poison ivy with only a coat of Nu-Skin holding the remaining skin on our heels to the rest of our bodies, Jim and I had to redeem ourselves in Rocky Mountain National Park.Yesterday’s snow and ice…