Warning this post might get long…a week of so many animals, overlooks and scenic views = so many pictures to choose from. 🙂
On Memorial Day Monday, after a very yummy wedding brunch and saying goodbye to everyone, we headed out to Estes Park, CO. We originally had planned to camp somewhere in the Spearfish SD area for 1 night but it was rainy and windy – not our idea of fun. The 6-7 hour drive on a grey day seemed like a great option…especially to sleep in a cozy condo. We had used some “traded” points on a program called Homexchange…it’s kind of like VRBO but not for money – we get points for letting people use our Marco Island condo, that we can then use at other homes across the country and world. We were lucky that our host in Estes Park didn’t have anyone else staying at the condo so we were able to go a day early! The cute and dry condo in a small valley outside Estes Park was waiting for us! Our plan of camping and then staying at Homeexchanges seemed like an especially great idea with the weather! We made a quick stop at Mount Rushmore on the way…cuz you have to when you are that close!! Have to say it seems smaller than we remember!!
The condo turned out to be a great place for us to hang out when the weather was a bit cold, rainy and SNOWY!! Yes on June 1st, we woke up to snow on the ground!! We still did so much while we were in Estes Park. I’m going to show as much as I can with photos… let me know if you find any mistakes!! I do a lot of reading on areas and pick up miscellaneous details that I like to share – some might say too much!
So many animals!! We were told that Rocky Mountain National is known for how up close and seemingly oblivious of humans the animals are – and I have to say I’ve never seen so many so close to where people are!
We did A LOT of hiking and biking while we were in Estes. I’m not going to go into detail of each one…Chad is planning to do that later on the hiking/biking part of the blog he is working on. He has some trail rating algorithms he wants to apply…he may be retired but the Industrial Engineering will always be a part of our lives!! 🙂
The first few days we were in the park we couldn’t do the famous drive on Hwy 34. The road had been open for the season but had to be closed again because of the snow conditions! There is a 24 hour recorded number to call and hear about conditions. We were happy to hear it was reopened on Thursday so we took the drive…WOW. It took us about 4 hours out and back. We made several stops to take in the views and stretch our legs a bit. The visitor center is the highest one in the country and the views are amazing! It was fairly crowded but parking was ok.
There is so much to do here…We had fun checking out so many other things in the area!
We loved our stay in Estes!! But are really looking forward to our visit in Denver!! Charlie, our nephew, is graduating from high school! We missed coming out 2 years ago when his older brother Maxwell graduated!! Darn Covid!!