Day 37: July 21, 2025 Fort Collins, Colorado, to Rocky Mountain National Park and then Evergreen Colorado

Up early and we were at Rocky Mountain National Park by a little after 8:00 am. After 9:00, you had to have reservations to get into the park, which got taken up really quickly. Luckily Dick did his research and we got in before the reservation period. He took us immediately to a road that is seldom traveled which took us up so high.

We had a delightful conversation with one of the 400 volunteers who are working to keep things going at Rocky Mountain NP this summer.  His job was collecting trash, and he did it with a smile.  Thank you volunteers who are helping out. 

We drove slowly, soaking in the beautiful mountain air and the wildflowers. As we went higher, we eventually went up over the tree line and we were so happy to see the beautiful, beautiful mountains, as well as so many wild flowers in bloom.

At the very top, we stopped at a restaurant that we always stop at and had hot cocoa, which was delicious. In July, there are just a lot of people in Rocky Mountain National Park so it wasn’t particularly fun to get in and out of parking lots. We just knew that there was going to be a lot of traffic. But we were happy just to drive along stopping to take some photos.

We had hoped to see some wildlife, and we were not disappointed . We saw yellow belly marmots, picas, golden mantle ground squirrels, chipmunks, and were thrilled to see quite a few elk. This included a bachelor herd that was just lovely with the big racks of antlers.  We also l saw a mule deer, and a mother elk and her calf. A good wildlife day.

We found a nice place for a picnic lunch. We enjoyed being able to chat with a family who is on vacation and give them some pointers about getting around the park. 

But eventually, we had to come down off the mountains. The regular afternoon mountain rain showers looked like they were coming soon and we wanted to get into town. We spent a little bit of time at the local library getting some Internet work done and then headed two hours down the road to spend a night with one of our good friend, Jenny, in Evergreen, Colorado.

Jenny greeted us with a fabulous spread of appetizers , and then a fine Mexican meal at a local favorite.

We sat up late catching up, but finally headed off to bed. We had an early morning the next day.