On the Road Again: Thursday, July 7, 2022- Estes Park, Colorado, and Rocky Mountain National Park

The sun was bright, the sky was blue, and most importantly, the temperature was nice when we woke up in our hotel room in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, this morning. For a moment, we discussed going back to Chimney Rock in order to retake the family picture there that we couldn't quite get before. When we realized that the backtracking to do that would add almost an hour to our travel time today, we reluctantly decided not to that. We had three hours or more to get to Estes Park, Colorado today, and we didn't really want to add that much travel time.

On our way to Estes Park, we passed through Wyoming, which will count as a new state for Abby. We were near Cheyenne when Julie spotted some planes circling from Warren Air Force Base and Scott spotted a large herd of bison just before we went into Colorado. When we did enter Colorado, it became Scott's 45th state and a new one for all of us. We drove on to Estes Park by driving through the Roosevelt National Forest and Big Thompson Canyon. As we drove, the steep, gray, rocky walls of the canyon were on each side of us, sometimes covered with tall straight pines. The Big Thompson River ran alongside the road, and we saw many fly-fishermen out in it.

Our first stop in Estes Park was the Stanley Hotel. It has long been an elegant and famous hotel in the region, but it might be best known as the place where Stephen King stayed when he got the idea for The Shining. He based the Overlook hotel in his book on his time here, and the Stanley has built up a large collection of ghost stories of its own. Stanley Kubrick's movie wasn't filmed here. It was filmed at a hotel in Oregon, but when The Shining was made into a TV miniseries, it was filmed here. Dumb and Dumber also shot some scenes here, but Julie wasn't as impressed by that. She did want to have lunch in the classy "Cascades" restaurant, since we were here. Scott had a "Redrum punch" to fit the atmosphere. In the lobby area, a Stanley Steamer automobile was on display. Much of the hotel was off limits to people who were not registered guests (or on one of the official tours), but we were able to look up the staircase whose mirrors are supposed to create a supernatural votex. The gift shop was open to us, of course, and Julie bought a Shining-themed t-shirt here for herself. As we were leaving, we had to go through the relatively new hedge maze in front of the building. The hotel didn't originally have a hedge maze, but so many people asked about it because of the Shining, they eventually put one in. We had to pay $10 to park here, but we were given a token for $5 off anything at the gift shop or restaurant, but we noticed on our way out that we forgot to spend it. There was a little bit of sprinkling rain while we were at the Stanley and some thunder in the distance, but it didn't amount to much and added to the spooky atmosphere while we were here. We heard about flash flood warnings all afternoon, but that probably happens a lot when storms pass through the mountains. Most of the time it was sunny and beautiful weather where we were.

NPS requires timed reservations to enter Rocky Mountain National Park, and we made ours back in the beginning of June when the reservations opened. We made one for a 4:00 to 6:00 entry window that included access to Bear Lake and then we made a second one for 11:00 to 2:00 that did not have that access. We probably shouldn't have kept two like that, but since we had them, we figured we would use the one that worked best for us today. Our drive from Scottsbluff and our long lunch at the Stanley meant that we would have to use the later one, for 4:00. We parked our car and started to explore the town of Estes Park.

Estes Park is the name of the town. "Park" here is from the French "parque," meaning "valley." The town clearly thrives on its tourism and we hit it during its peak season, apparently. There are many, many shops and restaurants in the town, and they all seemed to be full of people. At least, all of the ones that we got to, anyway. Abby managed to get mom to buy her a stuffed sloth. Mom said that Abby originally was going around the store with four or five of them in her arms, but Julie managed to talk her down to just one. A few of us were starting to drag by this point. Abby needed a nap, Emma was having a hard time functioning, and even Dad was feeling the effects of the Redrum punch wearing off. The shops are really cute, but if you go to enough of them at a place like this, we you do start to see many of the same items like t-shirts repeated through out them. After about an hour and a half of shopping, we decided to give the girls a chance to rest in the car. It was only about 2:30, but we got some drinks from Starbucks and McDonalds, got some cash from an ATM, and Julie even helped aid an older woman who had fallen on the sidewalk and scraped her arm. We made our way to the front of the park and Scott explored the NPS Fall River Visitor Center.

It was then 4:00 and time for us to enter the park. We didn't have much of a wait before a helpful ranger let us in, and we were on our way. We had access to Bear Lake, but decided to skip it this time because our cabin was waiting for us in Grand Lake, on the other side of the park, and we wanted to get through the park before dark. We made our way to Trail Ridge Road and followed it through the mountains, stopping occasionally at the scenic overlooks to enjoy the scenic panoramas. Our first real stop was at the overlook called Many Parks Curve. Parks, of course, derives from the French word for valley, so we could see many peaks and valleys from here. The view went from we assumed was Estes Park in the distance and Longs Peak, one of Colorado's "14ers"- mountain peaks over 14,000 feet tall. Our next stop was Rainbow Curve. Julie spotted a chipmunk when we first drove up... and then another ...and then another. If you looked over the side at the rocks along the face of the mountain, there were literally dozens of chipmunks here. The signs clearly said to NOT feed the animals, but the chipmunks clearly expected some of the visitors to do so. (We didn't.)

Knowing that we were coming back to Trail Ridge Road tomorrow afternoon for Julie's birthday, we skipped some of the overlooks. Our next big stop was at the Lava Cliffs where we were up above the treeline and looking at the melting patches of snow on the cliffs. It was cooler here, obviously. The lowest temperature that we noticed on the car's thermometer was 58 degrees. We wondered how much longer into July this snow could possibly last. We stopped at the Alpine Visitor Center, hoping for a place we could picnic, but the Visitor Center itself was closed for the day and there weren't any tables here we could use. We will probably be stopping back here tomorrow.

We were hoping to see some animals that were larger than the chipmunks we had seen, and our chances soon came. We saw a bunch of cars stopped just before Poudre Lake and found it was because of four big elk that were grazing near the road. We got some pictures of them, of course, but we really wanted to see a moose. We found some picnic tables near Lake Irene, and Julie was finally able to use the German bread that she had bought at the Amana Colonies in Iowa. We had some turkey with us for sandwiches and some chips. Having a picnic with a two-year old can be a bit of a challenge, but Abby was excited for it. Emma used the chance to rest some more in the car because we didn't have much of a choice for her to eat.

After our picnic stop, Julie spotted the moose that we wanted to see. A mama and her calf were in a field near Timber Creek. You can't stop alongside the road unless there is a pull-off for the cars, but these two were out in the open. Mama started to run as our car got closer and the baby followed her, but luckily they were running in the same direction that we were driving. This meant that Scott had time to get some video and a couple of still pictures as we continued along the road. There was one other point where Julie thought she saw a moose in the trees along the road, but Scott said it was an elk. (He checked his membership card.)

We passed through a region of the park near the Grand Lake exit that had been burned from what must have been the forest fire of October 2020.

As we exited to Grand Lake, Julie's cellphone was able to get a signal again and we got directions to our cabin. The cabin is just as cute as Julie had hoped. The has two floors, a front porch and a back porch. The front porch faces the west, and the sunset over Columbine Lake can easily be seen through the trees. The back porch faces the mountains, and it is here that moose have sometimes been spotted. The cabin has an "open concept" living room area and kitchen, and is decorated with woodsy feel. There is a stuffed moose head over the door- not a taxidermy stuffed head, but a plush stuffed head. It is cute. There is a bathroom off of the kitchen/living room. The sink in the bathroom has a tap that looks like an old hand pump and a basin that is made our of a small metal washtub. It is cute. Moose are a recurring motif in the cabin's decor, which was one of the reasons we chose it in the first place. Upstairs, there are two bedrooms- a big one for Julie and Abby to use (and maybe Scott, though he might end up on the couch downstairs) and a smaller one for Emma. Emma loves her sister, but we think she's looking forward to a room of her own and a way to get away from all of us for at least a little while.

Scott wanted to "create a moment" so he drove to a nearby gas station for some beer. He then sat on the porch with John Denver playing on his mp3 player, and drank some Coors. He normally wouldn't touch Coors, but we're in Colorado, so it seemed appropriate. He started to watch the sunset from the front porch, but ended up moving to the back porch since Julie and Abby were there. Abby was having a picnic with the two animals she has now. The sloth she got today and the lamb from Amana were both sitting a table of their own, eating chips. We watched the shadows creep up the side of the mountains. While we were talking with Anna on Facetime, Julie saw a deer run by the cabin. It was a nice relaxing way to end the night. On our vacations, we are pushing so much to get to the next place, we don't always sit back to appreciate moments like this one, but we made sure that we did tonight.