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And here's our Daily Log - if you are interested.
Day one. Early morning flight. After sitting on the airplane for about five minutes, five minutes full of touching everything, crawling from lap to lap, pulling up on the seat in front of us, licking the window, putting the shade up and down, we realized with smiles, we are crazy. Crazy in a wonderful way though. I’m so happy to travel the three of us. So crazy or not, we were on our way. All in all, Anna was awesome on the plane. We lucked out and had an empty seat in our row which Anna took full advantage of. We landed in Denver mid day and planned on driving to Colorado Springs to sightsee that afternoon. We made our way to The Garden of the Gods park to take in the views. Anna enjoyed the hike from her backpack. The afternoon light was fantastic on the red sandstone formations in the park.
Day two. Making our way to RMNP. Allen left us sleeping at the hotel and took some pictures at Garden of the Gods in the early morning light. We took our time in the morning and moseyed on to Estes Park with a short stop for lunch at the B&B café in Castle Rock which happens to be the oldest eatery in Colorado. We stopped in at the Falls River Visitor Center of Rocky Mountain National Park. I spoke with a ranger and came up with a game plan for our visit. We drove into the park from the east side and saw many elk in the meadows. One bull elk had close to thirty cows in his harem. We caught a few minutes of an elk presentation given by a park ranger at one of the visitor centers. Anna was a little noisy for us to stick around for the whole thing. Not to mention we were getting cold.
Day three. Our day started with a drive into the park and along the way there were lots of opportunities for elk viewing. Both in the Sheep Lakes area and the Moraine Basin. We parked the car and rolled down the windows to listen to the bugling. Our plan for the day was to hike to Mills Lake but hiking 5.6+ miles was a little daunting at the altitude and with Anna in the backpack. So we talked with the ranger and decided that taking the hike to Emerald Lake would give us more bang for our buck. Less mileage and along the way we would see Nymph Lake and Dream Lake. The hike was great and each of the three lakes was unique. At Emerald Lake we stopped and got Anna out of the backpack and rested for a little. I have to say it was the prettiest spot I’ve ever nursed her. Along the road to Grand Lake we stopped at the Alpine Visitor Center. The visitor center is just under 12,000 feet in elevation and has a nice view. Once past Alpine Visitor Center, the drive becomes pretty boring. The spectacular views are definitely on the east side of the park. We had dinner at a local Mexican restaurant in Grand Lake, El Pacifico.
Day four. We left our hotel early to start the drive back to Estes Park through the national park. We had marked a few places along the way that we wanted to stop because of different lighting. We saw a few elk along the road on the west side of the park. One even had velvet on his antlers still – not sure what that was all about. We decided to check out the Sprague Lake natural trail. Since it was a short walk, I decided I would try my hand at carrying Anna in the backpack. While it is very comfortable, I’m glad Allen doesn’t mind carrying her! The lake is home to trout which means we were able to watch some fly fishermen try their luck. Allen saw a small lake outside of the main park border but still national park land called Lily Lake. We couldn’t check into our hotel, even though we tried, so we decided to check out the lake. It was similar to Sprague lake in that it was an easy path around a pretty lake. Anna enjoyed the walk and caught a quick nap in the backpack. We went to a local BBQ place for dinner called, Smokin’ Dave’s. It seemed kind of silly to have Carolina pulled pork in Colorado but it was good and the corn bread was out of this world.
Day five. Heading into the park for our final day, Allen realized that each time we went into the park Anna had been sleeping. I was thankful she was taking an early nap this day because her night had been rough. She was up for about two hours in the middle of the night just unable to settle down and sleep. Out of all the hotels we stayed at this hotel we heard the most noise from our neighbors, so I was a little worried that they heard our grump-a-lump. But what can you do? I just focused on keeping her as comfortable as possible and eventually she drifted off to sleep in my arms. We weren’t sure what we would do on our last day in the park. Many of the trailhead parking lots filled up quickly and we were the latest we had been heading into the park. We lucked out and found a parking spot at Glacier Gorge trailhead and decided to check out Alberta falls. I’m so glad we did because this ended up being my favorite hike. The aspen trees along the path were simply amazing. All throughout the park we had see the beautiful yellows, golds, and oranges of the aspen leaves but this hike was the best. We walked right through a couple groves of trees and it was very pretty. The falls themselves were nice too. We decided to swing by Bear Lake on our way back to the car. The view across the lake was stunning and gave us a good view of where we had hiked the day before. Up, up, and up! On our drive out of the park we saw a mama bear and her cubs. No pictures because they were walking away from the road and it was a madhouse with all the idiots out in the woods practically chasing after the bears! We did a little shopping downtown Estes Park with a couple hundred other people. The Elk Fest was going on in Estes Park this weekend and we noticed a very big increase in people in the park as well as the town. We were glad to be getting out of town that afternoon. There was a glassblowing shop and studio in town. We picked out a small glass ornament for our Christmas ornament from the trip there. Our drive to Denver was a little exciting, first we got diverted by emergency personnel from one road because of an accident, and then the second road we wanted to take was closed as well this time due to construction! We made it to our hotel in time to watch the Clemson game and see our Tigers win!
Day six. Our flight home was another early one and happened to be Anna’s 10 month birthday. Whew, where does the time go? It seems like just last night I first brought her up to my chest. Sigh, Mamas always wish for time to slow down. Anna was a little less thrilled with the idea of a three plus hour flight. She fought sleep most of the time and it took two of us to keep her happy at times. As we were taxiing to the gate I caught a glimpse of something white in her mouth. Her first teeth!!
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