Today was an amazing day - definitely worth all the craziness that we went through yesterday! We woke up this morning and opened our blinds and got our first view of Estes Park and the Rocky Mountains around us. We got to have a lazy start and then head to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. It was so nice to be able to leave our luggage in our room for the day, and not have to check out again right away this morning. We headed out to our car then, and had an interesting experience - there were some college boys outside smoking marijuana in the parking lot. Lauren kept saying, "It smells funny out here. Kind of like burning trash." Yep, sure enough.
Anyhow, we headed into downtown Estes Park and spent the next few hours wandering around downtown, checking out all of the little stores. One of the things that we noticed is the huge amount of dogs in this town - they are welcome in many of the stores and so many people are walking their large dogs on leashes as they shop. At the place where we parked, there was a horse tethered nearby in a small nature preserve in the middle of town, with a small stream running through it. Lauren, of course, was smitten with that whole experience. We walked all the way down the main thoroughfare, and spent some time in the glass-blower's shop at the far end - we could watch him work and make specific pieces for customers who came in with a request. After wandering around for quite a while, we had ice cream from one of the little shops, and then headed into the Rocky Mountain National Park.
We had decided that we wanted to go to the Continental Divide (although, to be honest, at that point, we hadn't looked at a map yet and didn't realize how far into the park it is). That drive was the high point of my day. I detest driving up mountains when there is a sheer cliff on one side, so for me to have enjoyed it is quite a feat. It was unbelievably beautiful. Lauren wasn't quite so enthusiastic about it at first, since she loves sheer sides about as much as I do. However, there are many pull-off stops, and we got to do quite a bit of walking around. We got to feed chipmunks about 1/2 way up the mountains (yes, I know, you're not supposed to do that, but they were sniffing our hands for food and Lauren was squealing with delight. So I let her feed them a Fig Newton).
It was amazing to see how the land changed when we reached the tree line - the sign called it the Alpine Tundra - only little scrub bushes instead of the huge towering pine trees. And then we got up into the snow, and we got to go play in a big snow field, which was fun. It had clouded over by then, and although I had been hot in Estes Park in the morning, we were all wearing sweatshirts by this time.
As we continued, we saw herds of elk by the sides of the road. There was road construction for about the last 1/4 of the way, off and on. We passed the visitor's center on the way to the Continental Divide and decided to stop there on the way back instead, since it looked like it was going to rain. And sure enough, while we were at the Divide, it started sprinkling. By the time we got back to the Visitor's Center, it was raining - but it wasn't exactly rain, more like a cross between rain and snow - slushy. It was fun to have snow accumulated at the bottom of our windshield in JULY! We waited in the car for a while before heading in to get a few postcards and get a Junior Park Ranger book for Lauren. And I got a sweatshirt that shows that I made it to the top of the highest point!
On the way back down, the weather cleared up and was just sprinkling in patches. We stopped several times to do some climbing and hiking. We stopped by a snowmelt "waterfall" on the side of the mountain to put our hands in the cold water, climbed some big rocks (okay, I personally did not climb, I took pictures!) where Lauren got bitten by a big red ant that didn't want to let go, and explored near the stream that meanders down the mountain and has cutthroat trout. We could see them swimming around - Lauren wanted to try catching them by hand, but it started raining again. When we stopped to climb the big rocks, we saw 2 badgers in the scrub bush nearby, which was pretty exciting.
We headed back into Estes Park after that and headed to Subway for dinner (Lauren's first choice of all of the options!) We were hoping to head out and do a little more window shopping after dinner, and get some chocolate for later - there are little mom-and-pop homemade candy shops all over the place - and then head to a go-kart place. But it started pouring, and it looks like it's going to rain for the evening. So we're back in our hotel room. Lauren and Stuart are watching "Wipeout" - their favorite show, which they love to watch together. And I think Lauren and I are going to head to the hotel pool in a bit.
Tomorrow we are going to do a little more window shopping, I think, downtown here and then head to Denver. We want to take Lauren to eat at Casa Bonitas, and maybe go to the zoo. I really want to go to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, since they just opened the King Tut exhibit, but we'll see how many hours are in our day!
No comments:
Post a Comment