Rocky Mountain National Park

Today it was a short route through Rocky Mountain National Park; what an amazing place. We started the day already at 5000ft and by the time we were at the top of the first pass we were higher than Mount Cook and you felt it in two ways, temp and your breathing. At the top the view was to die for; you could see all the way back to our first stop Estes.

Estes is a cute little town that is a summer attraction for rodeo and Highland competitions. We went into this Christmas store and the lady there feed us beautiful fudge and she had the most amazing decorations. She told us about the time an Elk was strutting itself up the street "bugling"for his harem  when out of a side street 10 Elkesses came a trotting and followed him; show off!

Colorado is gold mining territory and you could see the scares everywhere, but it is beautiful and feels the extremes. We were around an hour in front of the second group and when they arrived at Evergreen we were hearing stories about getting caught in a storm with hail stones as big as 50 cent pieces, unpredictable is what Colorado is, unpredictable.

On our way back we went over another pass and dropped what appeared to be 2-3,000ft down into a little place call Empire for an ice cream. This place still lives in the 19th century; the lady who has the shop is a past hippy and when you talk to her it doesn't take much to see that the drugs had an effect. Outside her store she had put up two bird feeders for the Humming Birds and while there several can down to feed which was good to see.

After Empire it was down to the bottom of the hill and onto the interstate heading for a place of rest for the night, Goldern, Evergreen. It wasn't a long day milage wise but the heat took it out of us. We will sleep well tonight. Tomorrow Walsenburg.