Tue, Sep 11th - Park's Old Fall River (Dirt) Rd & Elk Viewing

Last night, it got down to 34 degF at the campground! But today was another bright sunny, cool day that got up to about 60 deg by noon. We drove up a dirt, one-way 9-mile road called the "Old Fall River Road" up the side of the mountain to the Alpine Visitor Center, which is about 12,000 ft high. It was an extremely curvy dusty road, but great views.

When we got to the top, we had a picnic lunch. We had gone to a nearby deli before our climb and gotten a pumpernickel turkey sandwich with deli pickle that was sooo good. Here is our lunch view. The mountains were a purple color. Reminded me of John Denver's song: "Rocky Mountain High".

After dinner tonight, we drove around and it wasn't long before we saw a herd of elk--right across the street from the park entrance (see Elk bugling below). From there we drove up Devils Gulch Road on the north side of Estes Park, as I had heard that that was a good place to see coyote--not! We did see a lot of very nice houses though (see one below).

Mon, Sep 10th - Coors Brewery Tour, Golden, CO

It was a rainy day today, so we decided to drive down to Denver for lunch at Emil-lene's Sirloin House (http://www.sirloinhouse.com/ ) for a steak lunch and then down to Golden to take a tour at the Coors Brewery. What a facility--all 5 sq. miles of it. We had a great tour guide--Dotty. They create everything there on site--bottles, cans, beer, packaging, etc. We were impressed. We each got 3 beer to try after the tour. We tried: Blue Moon, which they served with an orange slice (Great); Zima Tangerine (refreshing); Harvest Moon (Pumpkin spice) (okay); and Killian's Irish Red (good). It was a fun tour and just a few weeks ago, they opened their VA brewery in Shenandoah Valley. See a virtual tour at http://www.coors.com/brews_tours.asp .

When we came out from the tour, the sun was shining, so we drove a mountain road back to Estes Park that gave us a different view and kept us out of the Denver traffic. See below.

Sun, Sep 9th - Trail Ridge Road, Rocky Mt Nat'l Park

What a wonderful, sunny cool day we had to drive the Trail Ridge Road up to 11,720 ft. We entered at the Beaver Meadows Entrance near the campground and exited at the Grand Lake Entrance, had lunch in Granby and returned back over the same Trail Ridge Road. At noon, it was 34 degF with a 48-mph wind at the top at the Alpine Visitor Center. We took so many pictures that I had a hard time picking out which ones to show you!


This magpie and chipmunk seemed to pose for us to take their pictures! We have seen so many Magpies all over Colorado. And today we got to see 3 moose!

And of course, we saw lots more Elk and a male with his "harem!"

Here's a view of some of the snow up near the top.

Check out the poles on the sides of the road. They are there for the snow plows to know where the road is!

We crossed the Continental Divide and there is a beautiful lake at this spot.

For the grandkids: Not a lot of things can grow on the top of a high mountian on the alpine tundra. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tundra to learn about alphine tundras. Do you know what the green things are that are living on this rock?

Lichen (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichen)

Sat, Sep 8 - Estes Park & Rocky Mt Nat'l Park

We decided to leave Colorado Springs a day early--mistake. I forgot that the Scottish/Irish Highland Festival was going on in Estes Park till Sunday and that is why I had planned for us to arrive there on Sunday after they had ended! This picture shows the 8-mile backup going down into Estes Park. Oh well, it was another good chance to make sandwiches for lunch and eat them as we crept along. We are now camped at Elk Meadows on the other side of town from the festival and just outside the entrance to the Park.



About 5:00, we decided to stop at the visitor center for the Park and get a map and talk to a ranger about good places to go. He suggested that we drive into the park where the elk were known to be and see if we could catch a bull elk bugling. We did find two groups of cows and calves, but only one group had a bull elk herding them around in a group. Didn't get to hear him bugle, but it was fun to watch him keep them in a circle every time one would wander off.

I did spy (with binoculars) a coyote crouching down in the grass off in the distance watching one group of cows.

http://www.elkmeadowrv.com/ Elk Meadows RV Park website

Rocky Mt National Park websites:

http://www.rocky.mountain.national-park.com/

http://www.rmnp.com/

http://www.nps.gov/romo/

Estes Park websites:

http://www.estes21.com/ http://www.estespark.us/Index.HTML

http://www.estesparkcvb.com/

http://www.rvparksusa.com/co/co-elk.htm

Ute Indian History: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ute_Tribe

Fri, Sep 7th – Royal Gorge Train, Canon, CO

Santa Fe Royal Gorge Train--wasn't it a gorgeous day!

This was our dome car where we had a gourmet 3-course lunch with a view.

Here we are waiting to depart. All aboard!

And here was our main course--pork osso.

After lunch, we went out on the open air car to take pictures of the gorge, the rafters and the Royal Gorge Bridge

There were lots of white-water rafters going down the Arkansas River rapids!

After our train ride, we drove back to the campground thru open-range cattle ranches and then down to Cripple Creek. I didn't realize that Cripple Creek had so many Casinos! I'd rather bet on the horses, so no, I didn't loose any money in the slots!

www.royalgorgebridge.com

Thu, Sep 6th - Garden of the Gods Visitor Center, Wal-Mart & Camping World

We decided to drive back thru the Garden of the Gods early this a.m. to get different pictures of the red rocks. We went to the Visitor Center too and saw a film about how the Rocky Mountains were formed. Very interesting.

I needed to get a prescription refilled, so we headed into town to the Wal-Mart. After dropping it off, we went to a drive-in Sonic for lunch where you place your order at your car and they bring it out to you. Chuck had a burger with green chiles on it! Because we needed to kill some time before picking up my prescription, we headed to a nearby Camping World to see what was new. This Camping World also sold RVs. We walked thru a few neat ones—Damon Tuscany! Wow! See http://www.damonrv.com/motorhomes/tuscany/ . No we’re not interested. Just looking.

http://www.gardenofgods.com/home/index.cfm?flash=1 Garden of the Gods website

Wed, Sep 5th – Pikes Peak and Garden of the Gods

We got an early start this morning and had a sunny, blue sky drive up the Pikes Peak road. What a drive with “W” turns at the top where there were no trees and NO guard rails! (See photo.) We took LOTS of pictures all the way up. Remember, this is our first day of seeing Colorado “rocks”. We reached the top about 10:40 a.m., a 19-mile climb, 14,110 ft above sea level (2-1/2 miles high), 43 deg F, with 53.6% available oxygen! No wonder we felt dizzy and light headed. We took more pictures at the top, waiting for the Cog railway to leave at 11:20 and the cafeteria to clear out before we got lunch. We were glad we did our picture taking before lunch because after we had sleet and pea-sized hail! This continued until we got down to mile 13 where there was a Brake Check Booth. Our brakes registered 267 deg F; if you register close to 300 degrees F, you have to pull off to cool your brakes for 20 to 30 minutes. We stopped any way and went into the gift shop. The sky opened with thunder and lightning and hail (see Photo). The ground turned white and then it rained so hard that it washed it all away.

When we got back to the campground, the sun was shining, so we decided to drive thru the Garden of the Gods and take pictures of the red rocks as the sun was going down. We spent a short time in the Trading Post where Chuck got a new leather black hat with a wide brim to keep the sun off his face and neck. It is very dry here, but the sun is intense!

For the grandkids: In 1892, Katharine Lee Bates, a teacher from Massachusetts, wrote the words to what later became the song "America the Beautiful". Where was she and what inspired her to write these words?

Pikes Peak, Colorado Springs, CO; the view was so magnificent that she wrote about what she saw.

http://www.pikespeakcolorado.com/?refer=pikespeak