Day 2, Rocky Mountain National Park

All,

So Barry took care of the first post. I hadn't decided rather to blog or not, but I guess we both will.

We woke up in Denver this morning to a nice 75 degrees. We headed west on I 70 and passed the Mile High Stadium were the Broncos play. Jacob liked that. We drove thru Winter Park and saw our first clear view of snow topped mountains. We then drove thru Granby and finally reached the Rocky Mountain National Park entrance. Of course, we had to stop and take a picture by the entrance sign.

We stopped at many of the "pull offs" for Kodak moments and finally settled in a little valley with a beautiful stream to have our pb&j sandwiches. We then took a walk out into the valley, all the while watching thunderstorms move in. The noise from the thunder in these mountains is amazing.

It started a heavy drizzle on us, but we pressed on climbing higher and higher. We are used to the Smoky Mountains. These mountains just kept going, so we did also. We finally reached the Alpine Visitor Center. The elevation was about 11,719 ft. and we could really feel it. I couldn't believe how hard it was to breathe.

The temperature had dropped to about 50 degrees, so we pulled out our jackets and walked around. There were several areas that were closed off due to excessive snow. It had just snowed two weeks ago and the area had received 250% more snow than usual.

Along the route, we saw several herds of elk. Something else we saw was a lot of dead trees. A ranger told us that a beetle has overtaken a lot of the forest. Any tree or shrub that was green, the beetles apparently didn't like.

We then drove thru a quaint little town called Estes Park. We considered it a glorified Gatlinburg. Very clean, but very touristy.

We drove north into Loveland, Co and had a wonderful dinner at a Cracker Barrel. Mom and Pap would be proud. After about an hours drive, we drove across the Wyoming state line and have settled in in Cheyenne for the night.

Tomorrow we head toward Rapid City, SD. The kids can't wait to see Mt. Rushmore.

Till then . . .