June 7 - United States: Estes Park, Colorado

Run Around Estes Lake

At the Visitor's Center yesterday, the Estes "Ambassadors" told us that there's a lovely 3.5mi path around Estes Lake.  So that's where we headed for our morning run today.  And it really was lovely.  Lots of friendly runners and walkers, some intense fishermen, a few swarms of gnats, and quite a few curious elk.  But it was a great run and the weather was perfect for it.  One of the most beautiful runs I've had in a long time, actually.

Estes Lake

Estes Park

Back at the campsite, we showered and finished off our very stale bagels for breakfast.  Then we went into Estes Park to check out the "Main Street" of precious little shops.  The funny thing about Estes Park are the pedestrian patrols stationed at the various corners.  Jon called them "Dudley-Do-Rights" because their only job was to make sure that no pedestrians crossed the streets against the light.  This sounds pretty straight-forward, except that the crosswalk signals don't change when one traffic light turns.  Nope.  The crosswalks only light up when ALL the traffic lights are red.  So when it would seem perfectly natural to an urbanite like ourselves to cross when the parallel traffic is moving, Dudley informed us that we needed to wait until ALL the lights had turned red.  Thanks, Dudley from saving us from the heavy traffic in this two-lane, three-traffic-light town. 

Estes Park Shops

We wandered around for a while, taking in the little Indian shops, arts-and-crafts stores, taffy shoppe, and other yummy places.  Next thing we knew, it was around 1:30 and we had yet to see the park.

Rocky Mountain National Park

So, into the park we went.  We stopped at a place called Sheeps Lake to see the big horn sheep for which there were signs everywhere.  Of course, there were no big horned sheep to be found.  Just our luck!  Since we were starving for lunch, we found a little picnic area where we could set up the campstove and cook up some soup for our growling stomachs. 

Jon - Playing With Fire

After lunch, we headed up Trail Ridge Road.  And up.  And up.  And up!  We finally ended up near 12,000 feet and took in quite a few nice stops with great views of the tundra.  Tundra, since you were wondering, is Russian for "land with no trees".  It's really interesting to see how the vegetation suddenly changes when we reached an altitude of about 11,000 feet.  The tall huge trees suddenly gave way to green moss and small flowers.  It was so much like Tibet!  We stopped at one point at a place called "Rock Cut - Tundra Communities Trailhead", where we  fought our way through huge wind gusts to briefly hike a trail.  The views were great, and really reminded us of a stop we did in Tibet at the Kamba-la Pass.  (See Aug 22, 2001)

Pictures of the Tundra 

Back at the campsite, we made pasta (again) for dinner and chatted with our campsite neighbors who were from Colorado.  Then - because it was still light out - Jon settled into the hammock to read and I hit the shower.

"You're F^#%ing Pathetic!"

 I'm going to tell this story exactly as I later told it to Deputy Travis Matkin.

I went into one of the two shower stalls and put my stuff down on the bench.  When I looked up to the window in the shower (which very high - at eye level), I saw someone move outside of it.  Assuming there was a sink behind the little bathroom building, I simply slid the window shut and started to set up my shower stuff.  That's when I remembered than I'd forgotten something and went back out to the car.  As I walked back to the bathroom - which was right across from our campsite - I decided to have a quick look behind the building.  There was no sink or any reason for anyone to be back there.  But neither was there anyone there.  So I went back into the shower.

In the few minutes I'd been gone, the window had been opened an inch.  These little sliding windows had no locks on them, so maybe it slid open on its own.  Or maybe someone had slid it open from the outside.  The urbanite in me kicked in, and I became very suspicious.  Instead of using the shower caddy provided in the shower, I set my shower stuff up on the windowsill and against the window.  So if it "mysteriously" opened again, there would be a lot of racket.  Then I turned on the shower and stepped under the water.

Not even two minutes later, I saw the silhouette of a hand reach up from the outside and the window slid a little open.  Immediately, I slammed it shut and watched the hand shadow jerk away.  Then I opened it up again and yelled, "What?  You can't get a woman of your own to look at?  You're f***ing pathetic!!".  I slammed the window shut and applauded myself for my reaction and my resolve.  

And I spent the rest of the shower completely paranoid.

The window was too high for me to have looked out and seen anyone, and I was alone in the bathroom.  Someone could easily sneak in and I would never know.  The door to the shower stall was a wooden door with no lock, and I couldn't look out and see the bathroom area.  There was a break of about two feet above the shower walls to the ceiling, so a person could get into the other shower stall and look over.  Fortunately, there were campsites only a few feet away, and so if something happened and I needed help everyone would hear me scream.  But that didn't help my feeling of paranoia that someone could come in and spy on me.  I raced through my shower and cut myself shaving three times because I was shaking so badly.  Now I understand how women feel who've been videotaped against their knowledge.  Before, I never quite understood what the big deal is.  But now I do.  It's not the fact that someone's seen me naked (or almost).  My body is just like any other woman's body, so the naked thing isn't the problem.  It's the fact that it was done in such a perverted and malicious way and without my consent.  And the guy probably got off on it.  That's what's so disturbing.  I really did feel violated and a bit victimized, much more than I thought I would.  And this really pissed me off.  He freaked me out, and that made me mad.

I went out and told Jon that I'd just caught a peeping tom in my shower, and his reaction was priceless.  His face became furious and he immediately hopped up from the hammock, ready to kick someone's ass.  He's sooo my hero.  I can always, ALWAYS count on Jon to stand up for me.  My own knight in shining armor.  So he was naturally pissed that it happened 15 minutes before and the guy was long gone.  But he went to check out the bathroom just in case.  And it was at Jon's insistence that I called the local Sheriff's department. 

I didn't want to call.  It seemed a little silly to bring the police out just because some guy wanted to look at naked women.  But Jon pointed out a few good reasons for the police to come out.  First of all, Jon thought it could very well be someone who works here.  Jon says that the men's room has locks on the windows.  Somehow, this guy knew that the windows in the women's room didn't lock.  That means that just reporting it to the office won't stop him.  Secondly, if this has happened before or will happen again, the police need the paper trail.  Thirdly, the presence of a police cruiser at the campsite will deter this guy from doing it again while we're here.  So I called the local Sheriff's office (www.co.larimer.co.us/sheriff) and spoke to a really nice man who sent one of the Deputies out.

Deputy Travis Matkin arrived about ten minutes later and was just as nice as can be.  He took down all the pertinent information and - when he found out we were from New York - told us about when he and his wife were in Orlando on Sept 11 and how they had to drive home instead of flying.  (Everyone likes to bond with New Yorkers about Sept 11.  It's very touching.)  Then he drove around the campground asking people if they'd seen anything unusual.  He stopped by our site on the way out and said that he'd spoken to the college kids from Arkansas and told them that, in Colorado, peeping toms get branded as sexual offenders.  I don't think it was these kids, but I appreciated his presence in the campground anyway.  At least I can go to the bathroom without feeling like someone might try to open the window.

Jon, bless his heart, offered that we get a hotel room.  I told him that wasn't necessary.  That I wanted to stay but probably wouldn't go to the bathroom during the night unless he went too.  No big deal, since it's usually too cold for me to talk myself into getting out of my sleeping bag anyway.

It took me a while to fall asleep, because I kept imagining someone walking around our tent.  But I finally drifted off.  Jon and I both woke up around 4:00AM when he got up to go to the bathroom and so I went too.  All was well.  The only noises were the river down the hill and the owl hooting in the tree.  I crawled back into my sleeping bag and finally fell asleep again.  What an experience.