Day 3:
This was our first full day of vacation, and Rocky Mountain National Park was the destination. We entered through Estes Park and toured the ridgeline road. We drove from 4000 ft up to over 11000 feet. Funny thing I noticed was that the key fob was puffed up like a balloon. It took me a while to figure out that it was pressurized to Houston's inches above sea level, and that at 11000 ft, the reduced pressure cause it to puff up. Well, at least I now know that those keys are sealed really well!
One of the first higher altitude overlooks we stopped at:
The drive was great, and the weather was even better. Jennifer was at the wheel for this leg of the trip, and both her and the Ghost handled themselves with aplomb. We caught glimpses of big horn sheep, an elk, a marmot, and tons of chipmunks (or Timber Tigers as they are called by the rangers, haha).
The highest I climbed was to 11,304 ft. That was atop a rock outcropping, at the end of a steep and long path. Not being used to the thin air, and also out of shape!, I was huffing and puffing getting up there. I was determined to do it, and glad that I did. I was able to take some awesome panorama shots up there (which I might get around to posting some day). Also got some shots of the marmots
It went from a balmy 80 degrees down low to a brisk 63 degrees at altitude (or at least that is what the Ghost said...). I say brisk not because of the temp, cuz that is what I love, but because of the gale force winds blowing up the side of the mountain. It was crazy!
A view of the Ghost from hurricane point (as I like to call it):
After swinging through Granby and Central City (a neat little tourist trap/casino town), we settled in for the drive back to Longmont through a carefully selected scenic route. I say carefully selected, because I picked all of the squiggliest roads I could find as those tend to be the most scenic. We started to get hungry so using MFT we found our way to the Black Forest restaurant in Nederland. The place has to be experienced as I could not begin to do it justice by describing it. All I will say is that there was an older fella in lederhosen playing an accordion walking amongst the tables. Unfortunately for us, Jennifer specifically, our son Christopher decided he wasn't feeling well and threw up all over Jennifer in the restaurant... TWICE. Needless to say, I didn't get my jagerschnitzel like I wanted, and Jennifer was basically left with nothing to wear, as all of our clothing was back at the hotel. We were able to work that out and head back to the hotel after grabbing a pizza at the place across the street. The drive back, a much more direct route than before turned out to be amazing and the pizza was good too
I've been playing with the pictures, so here is a panorama shot in Rocky Mountain NP:
Other than the great upchuck incident of 2012, our first day was an amazing one.
At the very least, I’ll relay the available info from my tracker!
