On the Road Again: Friday, July 8, 2022- Julie's Birthday in Grand Lake, Colorado, and Rocky Mountain National Park

We all slept in today and enjoyed the peacefulness and space of the cabin. Abby was the last to get up, but she had a rough night sleeping last night so she needed the sleep. Once we were up and moving, Scott gave Julie a present he had gotten her in Amana. It is a CD called, "Bare Necessities" and it is all Disney songs done in a bluegrass style. We heard some of it in the store in Amana and she liked it.

It was after 9:00, going on 10:00, when we made our way into the town of Grand Lake and had breakfast/brunch. We found a place called the Blue Water Bakery and ordered our food there. We ate on their sidewalk patio and we had a lovely view of the lake from where we sat. Julie had stuffed French toast, one of her favorites.

We then found the docks to rent a pontoon boat from a company called Headwaters Marina, and headed out onto Grand Lake with Julie as our captain. We rented the boat for an hour, and Julie was briefed on how to drive it, what all the controls did and where she was allowed to go on the lake. Abby, of course, was wearing a life jacket the whole time. She thought she was a pirate again. We had time to circle the lake a few times and got to look at some of the big lake side houses and their boat houses. There were a lot of other people out on the lake today, including a couple of groups of sailboaters. It was very peaceful to be out there and Julie had fun, though she said she does wish there weren't so many restrictions about where you can't take the boat. She did a good job and was complimented on the way she brought the boat in to the dock. After the boat, Abby went to a little beach that was near the boat docks. We stripped her down to her diaper and she had a great time playing in the sand and water.

At first Julie had said that she liked Grand Lake better than Estes Park because it didn't seem to have the crowds that we saw yesterday. In Estes Park, they had crossing guards at some of the busiest corners that would stop all traffic and have all the pedestrians move at once "even diagonally." It was a bit stressful. Once noon arrived in Grand Lake, though, the town was getting much busier, but still didn't seem quite as crazy as Estes Park had been. We started to look for a place for lunch, but ultimately decided to stop at a grocery store and take some munchies back to the cabin and eat on the porch. It was ultimately much more relaxing that way.

When we were back at the cabin, Scott gave Julie another birthday present that he managed to buy this morning. It is a gold "Mama Bear" necklace, and has a picture of the mama bear and her three cubs walking behind her.

Today, our reservations to enter Rocky Mountain National Park were for the 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM window, so after we had lunch and rested up, we were ready to head back to the high ground. We started at the Kawuneeche Visitor Center, but it was pretty packed so we just entered the park and followed the Trail Ridge Road back the way we had come yesterday. Our first stop was at Fairview Curve. We got out here to take some pictures and look around. We were looking west out of the park at the Never Summer Mountains, which of course had snow on them.

Yesterday, we thought that we would stop today at the Continental Divide and the Alpine Visitor Center. When we drove by the Continental Divide sign, there were no parking spaces, and when we reached the Alpine Visitor Center, the parking lot was closed. A ranger was standing by the traffic cones because there were no spaces available then. So we drove on. We did have a reservation that would get us into the Bear Lake area, but that is at the far corner of the park and if we wanted to eat supper in Grand Lake or at the cabin, we wouldn't be able to go that far. We stopped at the Lava Cliffs, which we had seen yesterday, but we took a few minutes there to look around and decide what to do next.

We went back to the Alpine Visitors Center and enough people had cleared out that the parking lot was open again. Scott had said yesterday that he wanted to walk the Alpine Ridge Trail. It's not long, but it seemingly goes almost straight up. It is called Huffers Hill for a reason. You are in an atmosphere that is 30% - 40% thinner than what you're used to. The signs at the start warn you that you will get out of breath several times and should stop to enjoy the view of the tundra as you go. It is interesting landscape, covered with tiny little wildflowers. Scott actually decided to stop about half way up, but once he looked around to see what was left, he went up the rest of the way. It reminded him a bit of walking on the Great Wall of China. Once he got to the top, he was at 12,005 feet above sea level (and 200 feet higher than the Alpine Visitor Center below). There were a pair of elk in the tundra meadow at the very top, just laying there peacefully. They seemed to know that only the people that had hiked to that point would be able to see them and they were invisible from even a little ways below.

While Scott was going up the trail, Julie, Emma and Abby were waiting at the gift shop and cafe below. Scott came back and met them there. We then went to the Continental Divide sign at Milner Pass. Emma poured some water out in front of the sign because we wanted to see part of it flow to the Pacific and part of it flow to the Atlantic. (Scott had tried something similar in Yellowstone a few years ago.) Emma was in an exploring mood and she started down the trail that goes by p\Poudre Lake. Scott followed her. She has been lucky at spotting mule deer this trip, but Julie hasn't seen them because she was busy watching the road as she drove. Emma and Scott joked that when they got back to the car, they would tell Mom that they had seen a deer and a moose. Emma was a little ahead of Scott when they got back to the car, and as she approached the car, an actual deer came out of the path behind her. Julie was the first to spot it. Scott had been looking at fresh prints in the mud next to the path and wondering if they were deer prints. Turns out, they probably were.

It was getting to be dinner time, and Julie wanted pizza, so we went back into Grand Lake. We went to a place called Grand Pizza and were told that the order wouldn't be ready until 6:15, about 45 minutes later. Scott and Emma used the time for shopping in the gift shops that were still open along the main street. (Abby was finally taking a nap in the back of the car, so Julie stayed with her.) Scott was getting another surprise for Julie and Emma was looking for cake for the birthday. We took the pizza back to the cabin and enjoyed the quiet here, and the pizza itself was great. We got a few slices of chocolate cheesecake for Julie's birthday, though Abby kept insisting it was her birthday instead. The surprise that Scott got for Julie was another Mama Bear necklace. This one had a gold cut out of the mama bear and three silhouettes of the baby bears following behind. She was admiring this one in particular in the shop window this morning.

Julie said her birthday was a nice restful day. It wasn't a "pushy" day. The weather cooperated. It was a nice day.