Last call for Rocky Mountain National Park photos!
Eventually we had to leave Rocky Mountain National Park, and so we did. On our way out, we saw animals, picked up supplies, drove till after nightfall, and found a few things besides mountains to photograph. But mostly we wanted to hang on to the mountains for as long as we could.
Right this way for some natural bystanders and one (1) random football stadium!
Last Saturday, November 21st, Indiana got its first snowfall of the 2015-2016 winter season, a month ahead of its official kickoff. Three weeks earlier, I drove my wife up the side of a Colorado mountain just so she could throw a snowball.
Right this way for teaser photos of precipitation coming soon!
As we promised last time: MOUNTAINS. We saw some.
Welcome back to Rocky Mountain National Park in beautiful Estes Park, Colorado.
Right this way for mountains! And clouds! And mountains with clouds on them!
I sure hope y’all like mountains because we took roughly six million photos of the Rockies on this trip.
On Sunday we landed in Denver shortly after 9:30 their time. Our Colorado Springs hotel was seventy minutes south of the airport. We couldn’t check in till 3 p.m. With plenty of time on our hands, we decided to follow up our short flight with a long drive — two hours northwest of the airport for an encore in a little town we last visited in 2012 called Estes Park, snug inside the Rocky Mountains.
Life must be easy for Colorado residents. Whenever you need money, just walk outside, take a photo, turn it into postcards, sit back and wait for tourists either onsite or faraway by internet to make your payday. I don’t see how they can get used to walking out the front door without saying “WOW” every ten minutes and getting on each other’s nerves. Then again, I live in a state where mountains are more or less against the law. To me, mountains are a such staggering part of Creation, and yet in other states live people who think of mountains the same way I think of maple trees. Your everyday context determines what’s mundane and what’s extraordinary, I guess.
In part one of this miniseries-within-a-maxiseries, our intrepid band of wanderers (i.e., my family and I) began Day Six of our nine-day road trip by sallying forth from Colorado Springs to Seven Falls, a natural curiosity comprised of what they say they are, each one positioned above the other, nestled into the back of a spacious canyon with an eighteen-story metal staircase affixed to one side so that tourists aren’t required to bring their own climbing gear or jetpacks.
From the platform at the halfway point of the staircase, you can see their main observation deck called the Nest, from which most people snap their official Seven Falls souvenir photos.
With only forty-five minutes to enjoy the top of Pikes Peak as much as possible, we tried to savor the view, the thin air (for the uniqueness of the experience, not because we liked gasping), and the near-freezing temperatures that perfectly counteracted the summertime heat that had been hammering us at ground level. Alas, forty-five minutes flew by in about ten minutes flat.
One last shot for the road, then:
Once the Pikes Peak Cog Railway deposited us at the top of Pikes Peak, 14,110 feet above sea level, it was clear to all of us that Day Five had just won the vacation, if not our entire vacation history.
The views from all directions effectively narrate themselves.
The Manitou Cliff Dwellings are on the north side of Highway 24. On the other side of the highway is Manitou Springs, a cozy. woodsy town that thrives on Pikes Peak tourism. You may recall how last summer’s nightmarish wildfires made them a household name. Thankfully the coast was clear, embers were nowhere in sight, and the evacuations were called off days before our arrival. In fact, local news reports earlier that week had interviewed the townspeople about the impact of the wildfires on their economy. I like to think we did our part to reverse a little of that damage, if nothing else.
Lunch was at a restaurant called the Keg. I thought it was a mere bar when my son chose it from among several competitors, but we were starving and no one complained about his teenage presence, so I’m proud to label it as good family dining. I’m still not sure why he chose it, of all the many options surrounding us. Perhaps their wooden mascot captured his imagination with its trustworthy sign promising superlative cuisine. Maybe later we could also find a shop selling the Best Coffee in the World. I rolled with it for the sake of adventure and not-starving, and wasn’t disappointed in the least.
Previously on “Rocky Mountain National Park: the Miniseries Within a Maxiseries”: the second half of Day Three of our road trip was spent in and on the way to Rocky Mountain National Park, amidst a splendidly arranged mountain collection that shames the pitiful hills of our Indiana homeland.
The most conveniently paved entrance to RMNP from the southeast is US Route 36, through Lyon and into the town of Estes Park, crossing here over scenic Lake Estes.
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 