Road Trip - Day 5

On Wednesday morning, we got up early so we could get a parking spot to walk around Bear Lake.  The boys were tired, but it was worth it.  The drive into the park with the moon up was beautiful!

We drove to the Bear Lake parking lot and there were already people there and it was about 1/3 full (at about 7:00 in the morning).   This was my favorite day scenery-wise.  Bear Lake was calm and absolutely stunning.

There were quite a few trailheads that converged at trail lake, so we decided to do one more hike since the rain wasn't supposed to hit for another couple of hours.  We started our hike to Alberta Falls and up ahead there were elk right on the path!

We took a quick rest stop by the river on the way.

Alberta Falls!

We sat down to have a drink and snack and there were chipmunks everywhere.  Sadly, you could tell people feed them all the time even though the park asks you not to.  There weren't scared of us at all and would walk right up to you (you can see more in the video below).

 After our hike, we stopped at a little discovery center to check out the exhibits.  The view from the parking lot - RMNP is just gorgeous.

By this point, the parking lots for hiking trails had filled up and we had seen a lot of the park, so we decided to go back into town to look around and finish up our souvenir shopping.  We stopped at a taffy place and bought a box of taffy with mixed flavors.  They had a salted caramel flavor and OH MY, it was the best taffy I had ever had.   

In one of the stores, Hudson came upon a fedora and just went crazy over it.  Brian bought it for him and as you will see, he wore it the rest of the trip. :)

Playing some solitaire in his new fedora. :)

Day 5 video

Road Trip - Day 4

On Tuesday I had planned some hiking in RMNP.  Everybody was tired, so I left them sleeping...

to walk down to get some coffee.  Starbucks was just down this riverwalk about 5 minutes.

The sun was out and it was such a gorgeous morning!

After I grabbed my coffee, I went back and got everybody up so maybe we could get some hiking in before the midday rain came. We headed into the park and I was already excited about seeing some scenery instead of fog! :)

We were going to do the hike around Bear Lake, but they weren't kidding about the parking lot filling up.  If you aren't there early, you don't get a spot, and there's no where to turn around, so you just have to hope that someone else was pulling out of a spot.  Well, no luck.  So we check a couple other trails and their lots were full too.  After a little bit of discussion, Brian and I decided to try Trail Ridge Road again since it was a clear day and we could see.   There was a lot of traffic and some delays, but we got to the Alpine Visitors Center right around lunchtime so we decided to stop and eat.  These boy really got  kick out of the puffy chip bags. :)

The view was MUCH better than the day before. 

We left the visitors center and decided to go through the rest of the park to see what we could see and visit Grand Lake on the other side.  Hudson didn't last very long. :)

We stopped at at trail head to Adams Falls.  It was starting to drizzle, but we needed to hike!  So everybody threw on their rain jackets and off we went.

It was a short, but very pretty hike.

We met a cute little family that took our picture.

They told us there was a pretty meadow not far down the trail so we decided to head that way.  The rain started to get slightly heavier and the thunder sounded closer, so we rushed our way down, I snapped a picture and then we headed back to the car.  

Because being struck by lightening wasn't a vacation story I wanted to tell. #canigetanamen

We then drove into the cute little town of Grand Lake. (Mind you, we drove less than 10 minutes, got out and the sun was shining.  So weird.)

We went into a cute little store and for some ice cream and a candied apple.

Grand Lake is a lot smaller than Estes Park as far as the town goes, but it does have the gorgeous lake with some beautiful homes around the shore. We really liked it.

We left Grand Lake and took our last pass over Trail Ridge Road, stopping at the lookouts to get some pictures.

We saw a ton of elk that day - a few up close, but ended up seeing about 30 or so.

And we saw a moose - the first real life moose I've ever seen!  I was hoping to see a bull moose with some big ol' antlers, but this little lady was still pretty cool!

 We got back that night and played some more cards before hitting the sack to be up early the next day!

Road Trip - Day 4

Road Trip - Day 3

Monday morning we got up and headed into the park (in jackets... in AUGUST!  Hooray!)

The obligatory sign picture (I have one of these from every park that we have visited, framed and hanging together in our house - love it!)

It was about 50 degrees and pretty foggy.

 We stopped sat the visitors center and looked at the map of the park...

and watched the 20 minute movie about the park.

We drove along Trail Ridge Road (which is supposed to be scenic, but it was so foggy and rainy, we barely saw anything) until we got up to the Alpine Visitors Center.  This is the highest elevation visitors center in the national park system.

It was a brisk 41 degrees and really windy and drizzling.

 Our "view" from the windows. Hahahahahahaha!!!

 We shopped around a little and had a pretzel for a snack.

The boys stamped their national park passports

Since we couldn't hardly see anything, we decided to head back to Estes Park.  Trail Ridge Road doesn't have guard rails and the steep drops, traffic and fog had Brian a little tied up in knots.  We spent a couple of hours playing games and watching TV.

 We headed into town (and by headed into town, I mean walk the 3 minutes from our condo to the "main drag").  We had to cross over this little river - so pretty!

We chose Estes Park because of it's proximity to RMNP.  But I was amazed at what a pretty little town it is.  The landscaping was gorgeous.

After dinner we came back to the condo and played card games for a little while before bed.

Road trip movie- Day 3