We had a fabulous hearty breakfast that Jenny cooked for us in the crisp Colorado morning. We grabbed some more time to catch up as well as to take a tour of Jenny‘s beautiful home, sitting high in the mountains. We wished we had longer time, but we had to hit the road again.
We were on to Estes Park, gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park. Rather than going through Denver, we took the scenic mountain route for a little over 2 1/2 hours through winding mountain roads, historic mining communities. It was a beautiful drive in spite of clouds. Several times we climbed right into them, experiencing them as fog. Both of us had a little fear that our afternoon drive through at Rocky Mountain National Park might not be so beautiful if we couldn’t actually see the mountains because of the clouds.
But, we were so relieved when we arrived at the mountain town of Estes Park, it looked like we were going to see some blue sky as the sun began peeking through. We made a quick stop at a grocery store and then to fill up the gas tank before our entry into the beautiful Rocky Mountain National Park. Dick had been in the park many times over more than 60 years. Patti had come to love the park, too.
We were so grateful that our Airbnb host had given us a heads up that we would need to make reservations for timed entry into the park and so we had our timed ticket in hand and were able to easily enter the park.
We stop near the entrance for a nearly private picnic. The temperature was in the middle 50s and windy. So different than the temperatures had been in Arizona and New Mexico these last days. It was brisk, but we had warm clothes and were pleased to feel the fresh mountain air.
Then, we headed off for the next several hours for one of the most delightful drives around: the Trail Ridge Road. This road tops out at over 12,000 feet in elevation and took us through many beautiful, beautiful switchbacks, pull outs, and amazing viewpoints of mountains. The sky got more and more clear, and our hearts were more and more happy to be in the mountains. Patti pulled out “Rocky Mountain High,” John Denver's version, and we played it as we drove along looking at the peaks. Oh, those mountains are so beautiful.
We were also so pleased to begin our animal sightings in Rocky Mountain National Park. Today we saw chipmunks, golden mantle ground squirrels, elk, pikas, and marmots. The beauty of seeing these animals in the wild is just tremendous. We are hopeful in the next two days we will see even more of all of these animals, and perhaps will get an opportunity to see a bear or a moose.
Some of the areas in the park are tundra, that is very high where trees don’t grow, and the major plants are lichen and teeny little flowers. Looking down, we saw areas large trees, lakes and mountain streams. We stopped often, took lots of photos and soaked it all in.
Finally, it was time to head back down the mountain and check into our next AirBnB. This time we are staying in a historic 1914 building, built by a rich financier in this community, changing owners several times before being purchased by our AirBnB owners. We had delightful discussions with our AirBnB hosts, and met another young couple who was visiting from New Jersey. They had just gotten engaged on their hike today. Who knows what will happen in the magical forest!
Then we made a short seven minute walk to downtown. There we went on a search for a good dinner, which we found at a café serving food from Nepal. Tasty and we ate it all up.
After dinner we walked across the street to the park where we heard a concert “Cowboy Brad.” He led a sing-along with the couple hundred people on benches and blankets. As part of the program we learned he honored the search-and-rescue park rangers in the national park. There are so many fabulous staff people who help keep people safe and happy during their national park visits.
Then, it was a walk uphill to our home where we settled in for time to work on photos and see about getting some blog posts up on the Internet. We are thrilled that we have a couple more days in this delightful area.
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