Day 37: Rocky Mountain National Park (Colorado)

Rocky Mountain National Park was only about a half hour drive away from our campground. A town, Grand Lake, is just outside this entrance to the park and we walked around looking for something to eat. We settled on a barbecue place and then thought about renting an ATV to explore the trails around Rocky Mountain National Park. We decided against – there wasn’t enough time since we wanted to be outside Denver by the end of the day.

Instead, we entered the park and drove the main park road to the other side.

We began with a short hike to “Adams Falls,” a small waterfall near the entrance that also offered nice views of Grand Lake as well as cliff-side homes just outside the border of the park.

A few miles into the park we decided to give fishing one more chance. We pulled over and walked a while until we found a creek.

Rain started as we fished.

Unfortunately, still no luck.

A few miles later we started climbing in elevation along the main road. This road takes you to one of the highest points accessible by road in the U.S. – 12,184 feet. We literally entered the clouds. The overcast skies probably make for some poor pictures but the effect in person was very dramatic. Winds kept shifting the visibility and changing the views. Some pictures of the drive up:

At the top there’s a visitor center, restaurant, and a pretty cool store. It felt like we entered a winter storm up there – near zero visibility and temperatures close to freezing. We got out at one point near the very top where it was clearing up a bit and took some cool pictures of a meadow area:

A "marmot."

That's me in the clouds.

Some more pictures as we drove along the very top and then back down:

We caught sight of elk on three separate occasions today:

In short, Rocky Mountain National Park was another very impressive place that we highly recommend.

After leaving the park, we made a decision – to skip Denver and gun it home so we have a couple days to relax before heading back to work. So we crossed Eastern Colorado and the wide open plains of Kansas.

In fact, we drove from about 3 PM straight through 1 AM, making it as far as a highway rest stop 200 miles West of Kansas City where we took a nap that almost qualifies as sleep.

Don’t worry, there’s a couple more interesting blog entries left before this is all over. Tomorrow we’ll explore some TWA nostalgia and barbecue in Kansas City.

Random Fact of the Day: You know you’re not in Massachusetts anymore when the GPS tells you “continue 640 miles on I-70.”

Pitch darkness as we continue crossing the plains of Kansas.