Wearing flip-flops in the snow

What an odd little town Nedertown is. We tried really hard to have a nice time and like it a lot but it just wouldn’t play. The bars wouldn’t let us in with the dog (a first for this trip), nobody would tell us about the dead guy, and the only decent conversation I had was with a drunk whose mother has a pit bull terrier called China that could take Josie in a fight.
So let me tell you the dead guy story. This Norwegian guy died in the 80’s. His grandson, who was the local weirdo, froze him using dry ice and a wooden box. One of the issues is that he’d been dead several weeks before all this so, yukkyness. The local Tuff company donated a shed and now once a month the grand kids refresh the ice (cost $700). The town was furious about the dead guy and passed a local law banning the keeping of dead things. Sadly you can’t retro fit laws so the dead guy stayed. After a few years of grumbling about it, they (hypocritically in my opinion) changed their mind and introduced the Dead Guy Festival: four days of partying where the town cashes in big time on the cold chap.
Sadly you can’t visit him and everyone you ask (we asked a lot) looks at you like you’ve got leprosy.

So we moved on to Estes Park, home of the Rocky Mountain National Park.
Estes Park sucks too!
Actually it doesn’t. Its really nice and the people are lovely but the local County has passed a law banning dogs from anywhere that claims to serve food. So no eating on patios or in beer gardens. It’s really cramping our style.
We’ve had a great day just pottering about and spent the sun-down chasing Elks across the hills. The dog wasn’t impressed but we were stunned at their majesty. The hills happen to be highest point in the USA at 12,020 feet. It was damned cold and beautiful in equal measure.

Tomorrow is another 5am start to capture the sun up.

Oh and we’re spending these 2 nights in a shed! Deanna has rented what claimed to be a log cabin in the hills but is really just a shed at the back of town. No wifi, no cooker, no locking doors, and I suspect no running water.

[update: no usable power outlets either, the ones provided are circa 1950 and don’t accommodate modern plugs]