I went to the fitness room at 5am since I was awake anyway. I got back to find that the girls had woken Jada once again by being loud and whispering. After I got out of the shower, I had the girls sort their clean laundry and get dressed so their bags were ready to go at least. Then I took them down for breakfast. They behaved well enough at breakfast at least. Phoebe even got a compliment from one of the staff in charge of keeping the food stocked for her politeness when she asked for a bagel. The cold stuff was the usual, but the warm items were mini-cheese omelets, ham discs, and french toast sticks. I thought it was pretty good. Jada came down when we were done. She kept Ellen downstairs, and I took Phoebe up stairs to finish getting ready.
We got a late start (on the road a little after 8am) under cloudy skies as we headed north towards highway 70. Then it was almost 300 miles due west to the end of the state. It was windy, but the clouds cleared off around mid-morning towards the western edge of Kansas. We saw lots of State Police activity on the highway between Oakley, KS and Colby, KS. Seemed like they were doing some sort of sting for speeders. It’s the most I’ve seen of any state patrol since we left OR. We ate our lunch of sandwiches in the car as we drove. We crossed into Colorado just before noon, and I firsted the “We’re not in Kansas anymore” statement. We changed into the Mountain Time Zone just before Colorado, but our phones didn’t automatically update until after crossing the border. They still have a place to pull off and take a picture of the state sign as I remembered from when I came here with the fam when I was a kid. We reached our goal of Burlington, CO by 12:30pm since we lost an hour. After a brief discussion about options and making sure we could cancel the reservation at the Comfort Inn, we called some Hamptons in Denver area. The first was full, the second had rooms, but it was really expensive and we had to pay for parking. Finally, we found an available room in the one farthest south of the city which is in the suburb of Denver called Glendale. That was another 2.5 hour drive form where we were, and we set off at 1pm.
We were already at 5000 feet elevation after 30 minutes of driving. I made the comment to the girls that we were already 2000 feet higher in elevation than we typically snowshoe on Mount Hood. We couldn’t see the Rockies on the way in due to the clouds, and it started to rain on us as we got within 50 miles of Denver. But we could see a much worse storm just off to the south which we ended up driving around. As we exited highway 70 into the outer suburbs near the airport, Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody came on iPod (it had decided to play all of my songs in alphabetical order today. It took us about 3 hours to figure that out, when three or four songs with “baby” at the beginning of the title came on in a row. You’d think we would have figured it out when we kept hearing different versions of the same song in a row! It’s kind of fun to try to figure out how it is grouping songs each day), and Jada pointed out that we were in the suburb of Aurora. (That’s a nice inside joke for you Wayne’s World fans out there) So we re-enacted the Gremlin scene sans licorice rope.
Traffic was heavy through the ‘burbs and into the south end of Denver where Glendale is located. We arrived at our hotel at 4pm for roughly 8.5 hours in the car today, but thanks to moving ahead yesterday, we were able to move ahead today. That’ll make things easier to launch out to Estes Park tomorrow after getting our grill exchanged at REI. I got the mail yesterday that our new one had arrived at the Denver store. We took one of the hotel’s suggestions and ate at an authentic Mexican place across the side street called Las Delicias. It was inexpensive and the food was delicious. It looked like lots of the people who live around there eat there frequently as well. That usually speaks well of a place. There was a Whole Foods right next door to that still across the street from the hotel so we did some shopping for camping the next 2 nights. Our room has a refrigerator too, so that helps. I’ll buy some ice tomorrow morning before we leave. REI doesn’t open until 9am, so we have time to ease out of here. The sun came out when we got back to the room, so we had a better view of the front range to the west and downtown Denver to the north as the sun is setting. We’re on the 5th floor of our hotel, so the view is pretty good. I tried to book a hike for next week in Arches through the Firey Furnace, but they were already booked solid. We were really looking forward to that, and we read it as we couldn’t book it more than 7 days in advance, but that’s obviously wrong since the next available time for 4 tickets in in August. We’ll just check when we get there.
The girls are relaxing and reading their books. I’d say I hope this means they’ll cooperate at bed time, but I’m not going to hold my breath. Jada went down to the fitness center. I think I’ll go tonight as well so I don’t wake everyone up with the loud doors in the morning.
Later: I returned from the fitness center to find the girls in bed and Dave getting ready for his workout. Although Phoebe was a little squirrelly, she has calmed down less than 10 minutes later. I am hoping for a full night of sleep tonight:).
July 22: Denver, CO to Rocky Mountain National Park, Aspenglen Campground, CO
There’s a funny story from last night when Jada and I were getting ready for bed. We did some unrehearsed synchronized flossing. It was pretty peculiar how completely in sync we were with the pulling out of floss, make the turn and re-twisting it on our fingers. I guess that’s what nearly 10 years of bliss will do. Not another great night for the girls. They were both stuffy, and sniffled all night long. I don’t think I slept after 1am. I really need to think about picking up some earplugs. I got up and showered so we could eat at 6am since we were all awake anyway. Phoebe and I went over to the Whole Foods to pick up ice at 7am. It was a clear, cool morning. Quite different from yesterday morning in southern Kansas with the heat and the humidity.
I thought that REI opened at 9am, so we were on the road by 8:30am. Traffic was heavy into downtown Denver. However, when we got there, all the signs said they opened at 10am. A quick check of the hours online found that I had mis-read the hours. We had passed an aquarium and a children’s museum on the same road that REI is on, so we checked on them. Aquarium didn’t open until 10am either, but the Children’s Museum opened at 9am so we headed that way. When we got there, we found a really cool Platte river side greenway park where the kids could play instead outside. The park had some neat stone sculptures to play on like a salmon breaching the surface, a turtle, rattlesnake, and a book. There was an amusement park that looked like a Six Flags, but when I asked one of the moms at the park, she said it used to be a Six Flags, but they lost their affiliation. In the end, we figured it worked out that I was wrong on the time so the girls could get some play time in.
We were the first through the doors when the REI flagship store opened at 10am. That place is amazing! I’d love to spend a couple of hours just there. They had a 3 story climbing wall in the central part of the building with multiple routes up all sides including chimneys, and hanging climbs on the underside of a lip. We explained the situation with the grill. It turned out we’d bought it in 2006, but they took it back all the same. It pays to be a member! Next we headed downstairs to pick up the new grill. They kindly let us open all the packaging and leave it to be recycled. No room in the Subaru for a box that big!
Traffic was heavy all the way to Estes Park. Highway 25 dumps you out into Boulder near the CU campus where you crawl through town and all the stop lights. Highway 34 takes you the rest of the way into Estes Park through Lyons. Lyons looked like a fun town to live too. There was a festival going on. They had some green space parks along the road with bike paths and stone sculptures as well. We arrived in Estes Park at 11:45am. Ellen had been complaining of a headache all morning. She had skipped drinking water since REI, so the altitude was getting to her. You always need to drink plenty of water in the mountains. We had lunch at a place called Village Pizza. They had great food, but it’s definitely not fast. That was fine since we didn’t need fast. Mostly we needed water which they left at the table in a pitcher for us. Ellen drank 2 and a half glasses while she waited for her lunch. We next stopped at the Fall River Visitor Center just outside the Rocky Mountain National Park entrance to pick up the Jr. Ranger books and some post cards. I even found a sticker for the box. Entry to the park is the same everywhere. $20 for a 7 day pass or $40 for a year. We got the seven day.
Aspenglen Campground is a beautiful campground. We had site B-10. It is a nice and big site right across the path from the toilets (close, but not too close). There’s even a waste sink for washing dishes. It had a pad for setting up the tent on too like in Glacier. We’re at 8700 feet in elevation here too. I think we were all feeling the altitude a bit. Just after I finished setting up the tent at 2pm with Ellen’s help, a mountain thunderstorm rolled through. It kept us in the tent for 90 minutes during which Jada napped, and I was in and out of sleep. Phoebe and Ellen worked on their Jr. Ranger books. They’re both almost done. We just have to do a Ranger program tomorrow. Even with the hard rain, it is a great campground. I had my doubts about spending 2 nights here, but I’m glad we are. We went for a short walk up to the bridge over Fall River and back. The wind was kicking up, and the sprinkles were starting again. We went ahead and started making dinner at 5pm, but the next shower rolled through at that time and continued for an hour. It wasn’t as hard as the last one, so we pushed through. The girls made a resort for insects out of stones and pine cones before we sent them into the car to eat dinner. Of course, the rain lifted and the sun came out right after we were finished eating and working on cleanup. The sun came out, and it’s been clear ever since. We met a woman and her son from Texas and talked to her for a while. They’re on the their way north to Yellowstone.
Got the girls into bed by 7pm, and they were quiet until they fell asleep. It started getting cold once the sun went down and the mosquitoes were out. We’ve had deer hanging out behind our camp site all afternoon. The highlight (if you want to call it that) was while I was typing this a small bear ambled across the ridge behind us. I don’t think I got any clear pictures, but I did get video. Apparently there is one site that isn’t open right now because of bear activity on a trail that leads up from that site. A minute later, we saw the camp host heading to a site across the campground from us, then we heard him making a bunch of noise to move the bear along. We heard the owners of the site, who weren’t there at the time, saying it had gotten on top of their picnic table and started knocking things around. It’s going to be a tense night for bathroom trip at 1am.
July 23: Rocky Mountain National Park, CO
No bears seen overnight, and I should know with how often I was awake last night. I feel like I didn’t sleep at all. Really clear skies. Clear enough to see the denseness of stars in the Milky Way. The girls woke up early too. I escorted Ellen to the bathroom around 4am, and Phoebe was up about an hour later to go. I must have passed out after that because Jada had to check if I was alive after I slept through another argument from the girls about how long they have to stay in bed. The sun was already up at 6:30am when I climbed out of the tent to start breakfast, and it was warm. I could have been in my short sleeves and shorts already. We made eggs and pancakes. The first batch of pancakes failed again for Jada. She thinks maybe it’s because she cleans the griddle between uses, and after scraping off the first batch, the second always works fine. We were done eating by 8am. Ellen found some bugs living in the insect hotel she had created. She set out food for them and prepared lunch for while we were away. It was quite elaborate.
We left camp at 9am. There was a Jr. Ranger program at 10am in the shelter at Hidden Valley. It used to be a ski destination until 1992 when the snow became more and more inconsistent. Now the whole area is going through a reclamation project. We learned about tree ecology and did a short hike to get out of the wind off the trail. It was the last thing the girls needed to fill in their books to get their badges. The interesting thing about this park was it didn’t have a specific number of pages that had to be done. It only said that they should do as many as they could. Being the sticklers that we are, we had them do the whole book because they could. They had almost the whole thing done during the storm yesterday. They love doing those things. The took their ranger oath and got their badges at the end of the program from Ranger Charlie.
It was already 11am when we started up the Trail Ridge Road which is the highest continuous paved road in the US topping out around 12100 feet above sea level. We stopped off at Many Parks Curve where there is a panorama of peaks to be seen, though they recently repaired the walk way around the curve, and must not have replaced the signs explaining the curve yet. We got stopped twice for construction for maybe 10 minutes each since they’re taking this year and next to complete a resurfacing project. We finally reached the Alpine Visitor Center at 12:30pm. The parking lot was packed, but I got lucky with a parking space near the front on my second lap through. We stopped in to the visitor center first to look at the exhibits. We saw elk sunning themselves down the hill from the center. We grabbed our lunch pieces from the car and sat in the Cafe above the Clouds to eat our sandwiches, grapes, carrots, and Pirate’s Booty. I picked up a Colorado state sticker for the box from the gift shop. These non-affiliated shops always have more of a selection. It was 60 degrees at the top and really windy.
We started on our return trip around 1:30pm I think. I didn’t check the time when we left. We stopped at some of the turnouts we had skipped on the way up since we wanted to get lunch. We stopped at the Lava Cliffs which were formed by a volcanic explosion in the geologic past of the park. On the way to the next turn out, Ellen spotted several Elk right above the road. The next stop was called Rock Cut where we did a mile hike in the alpine tundra up to an overlook that my watch said was at 12500 feet above sea level. I told the girls that we were higher than Mount Hood at that point. It was a beautiful hike. I took way too many pictures of wildflowers and mountain vistas. Our slide show will now be about 90 minutes long. (don’t worry, we won’t make anyone sit through it... but if you ask to see it, be sure to make some time). It was an informational hike called Tundra Communities where we learned about how the environment survived and was created. All the rocks get churned to the surface by the moisture in the ground melting and freezing. The flowers are small to survive the severe winds, and they have a chemical (which I can’t remember) that helps them convert sunlight to heat at the high altitudes. Lichens are all over the rocks which also contribute to the landscape. At the end of the path, you could climb up on these really big rocks to get an even higher view. The girls wanted to climb, but Jada and I thought it wouldn’t be a good idea.
After the hike, we drove straight back down. The construction was done for the day, so we didn’t have any delays. We went out of the gate to the visitor center where there was also a small store to try to find some jiffy pop. They didn’t have any though. We did mail some post cards. We were back at the camp ground by 3:30pm. It was really quiet. We worked on postcards and journals. It was 80 degrees back down in our camp. Jada made another yummy dinner of leftover chicken, sausage, rice, and peppers. We got everything cleaned up as best we could without completely packing up, but everything for breakfast is ready to set out. We put the girls to bed by 7:20pm. Hopefully the altitude and walking tired them out a little bit so they’ll fall asleep. I made a fire so we could roast marshmallows. Plus the girls just like having a fire.
Planning on going to bed fairly early tonight. Driving to Pike’s Peak tomorrow. Weather report isn’t great, but mountain weather is unpredictable in both ways. 121 miles for the whole RMNP/Denver trip.