Kendall and I went round and round about what to do to commemorate our 70th birthdays this year. Two criteria stood out: it should be something unique and something we could do together. Thus we arrived at the 70/70 Quest: Do 70 things or see 70 sites that neither of us have ever done or seen before.
The first adventure of our 70/70 Quest was a trip to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge (www.fws.gov/refuge/rocky_mountain_arsenal/). This wildlife refuge spans 15,000 acres of prairie, wetland and woodland habitat and has transitioned from Native American hunting grounds to farmland to a war-time chemical weapons manufacturing site (after the attack on Pearl Harbor) to a Shell Chemical manufacturing site and to cold war weapons production. That all came to a halt in the 1980s when the Army and Shell began an extensive environmental cleanup effort. In 1992, Congress designated the site as a national wildlife refuge, in 2010 cleanup was completed, and in January, 2022 Kendall and I finally visited the refuge after having heard about it for years.
There are several prairie trails and ponds with trails around them near the Visitors' Center but the bulk of the wildlife viewing is along a one-way road from which wildlife viewing is abundant (and where stepping out of your car is prohibited). A few examples of the sights along the road:
...amazing that all of this is in Denver's backyard...
We are thinking a return trip later in the spring may be worthwhile to visit the ponds within the refuge which should offer up some dandy bird watching as the spring migrations get underway.
The Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge - the first in our Quest for 70!
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