Special Biotic Community

That was the title of a recent assignment in my Principles of Natural Resources class. I hemmed and hawed for DAYS on this assignment, because there are so many places that have special meaning to me. I really contemplated putting down Andermatt, Switzerland. This was a town that the husband and i stopped in one time while on vacation. It was a completely random stop, and turned out to be one of the best places we have ever been. Way up in the Alps, at the foot of the Rhone Glacier. We were there in the summer time, right after we got Henry. He was a little Mountain Goat on that trip, hiking all around Andermatt with us.

Well, it is much easier to do the research on a place in the US using USGS data, so had to scratch Andermatt as my place. Instead, i picked another place that i LOVE. Rocky Mountain National Park. I think we were there exactly one year ago today, too. We try to go up every time we visit Colorado. The husband likes it when i drop him off on the Front Range, at the base of the road leading up to Estes Park, so that he can ride his bike up. Must be nice to be a phenomenal athlete! The dogs and i meet him at the top, and we go about our day from there. Henry likes to swim in the stream in the middle of Estes Park, and Fred likes to dream about cutting loose on the tundra on the top of RMNP.

I love mountains, and the more extreme the range, the better. No wonder why the husband and i loved Switzerland, and the Alps in general. Any Alp'll do. French ones, Swiss ones, Austrian ones, even German ones. And when we cannot be in Europe, the Rockies, Cascades and Sierras are the destination of choice. I love 'em.