Hampered by Heat, Headed to the Hills

As with every trip, plans we laid out months ago don’t always make sense in the moment. Flexibility and willingness to change plans on the fly are both key in our ongoing travel success.  The next leg of our trip was supposed to have us spending the night in Eastern Colorado, followed by the Denver zoo the next day and then Dinosaur National Monument after that.  The forecast was predicting highs of 95+ degrees for both locations . Over the years, we’ve learned that enjoying the trip is often more important than following our plan. We considered at least half a dozen options, but most included hot weather or long driving days. Do we stop in Colorado or Utah or head for the coast? Grand Teton was only a “short” drive away… almost everything was an option, but could we find reasonable lodging at the last minute? What did we want to do? Ultimately, the mountains were calling, and we headed for Grand Lake, Colorado.

We kept the first part of our original plan for the day and visited Amache National Historic site.  This is one of the newest NPS sites.  It existed for years as a site run by a teacher and students from the local high school and became an NPS site this year.  We first did a driving tour of the grounds of the former WWII internment camp.  We did get slightly delayed on the way in to relocate a turtle crossing the road. 

This is a similar site to Manzanar NHS in California, but has fewer overall buildings, all of which are reconstructions.  Like Manzanar, it was an interment camp where Japanese Americans were forcefully relocated during WWII.  We had a difficult time deciding whether Amache or Manzanar was located in a more inhospitable location.  Trees were scarce, and there was little protection from the harsh Southeastern Colorado climate.  At its peak, Amache housed over 7000 men, women, and children and was the 10th largest population center in Colorado.  The park museum highlighted the suffering endured as part of the imprisonment but also focused on the ability of the prisoners to persevere and preserve their culture under incredibly difficult circumstances.

Once we finished at the park we began what ended up being a 7hr drive to the Grand Lake KOA.  We were greeted by cool temperatures, mountain views, and a resident moose.  It was immediately obvious that we made the right decision.