Hello Estes Park
This morning started out with a quick grab and go breakfast in the hotel lobby and a few short hours of photos in the big house. We worked for only about 2 and a half hours before calling it finished. We finished up with about 90 different views so I would say we covered everything.
After saying our goodbyes we started our journey to Estes Park. Due to the wild fires what would have been about a 2 hour drive was 4. We had the choice of going south around the fire almost back to Denver and then up through Boulder or going north into Wyoming before heading back down into Colorado and the park. We chose Wyoming which took us into Laramie. I was excited to be back there for the first time in over 20 years and to be able to hit 2 states on our trip! This first leg of the drive was my first time behind the wheel of the big truck. I got to drive up over a mountain going from 8400 ft up to 9100 ft and then back down to 7300 ft elevations. The way down I was extra cautious with it being such a big truck and being my first time driving it but I did have fun.
While we were up in the mountain we passed a whole burnt section of trees. At first, I thought it was from the fires happening now but then we realized this must be older because of the new growth we could see.
After getting into Laramie and driving through town we realized there was no where to park, so ended up stopping for lunch at Iron Skillet. James had a burger, big surprise there, and I had a chicken cordon bleu sandwich. There was some rain in Wyoming but coming back into Colorado, it cleared right up.
James took the wheel again and we started on the second half of the trip. Here we saw a lot of red rocks around the road, something we don’t see at home very often.
When we got close to Estes Park we looked for smoke from the fires but couldn’t tell if what we were looking at were clouds or smoke. I still can’t figure out if we ever did see smoke in the distance. We drove through this amazing rock canyon that pictures really don’t do any justice. At some points you couldn’t see the sky the walls were so high. We were driving next to, what looks like on the map, Big Thompson River.
This time we are in a condo called Beaver Brook. I have to say, James was right this is much better than getting a hotel room. We have a deck on the back looking over the river and mountains. There is a fireplace, microwave, minifridge, and a full size shower. Here is a look from the deck
We checked the place out when we got here then immediately started emptying the truck. We stepped back outside and heard an elk and knew it was close. After getting everything inside we went out to the deck to see if we could spot it out by the water and I caught it moving through the trees! I can’t believe we saw one so fast. We couldn’t have been here for more than 15 mins before seeing our first one.
Our last stop of the day was the local Country Super Market for essential food. We packed our bags for exploration tomorrow and we are in for the night!
