Day 9 (Alyssa’s Birthday)

It’s July 23 and Alyssa is 15 today. When I was growing up we were always on vacation for my birthday, so I thought it was great that Alyssa could have a Rocky Mountain birthday. We decided to take them on a horse ride for Alyssa’s birthday.

Here is Alyssa on her horse.

Here are the horses in the coral

Ashley on her horse “Curley”  

Aug and Ash on the trail

We went on the 2 hour ride,we wanted to get their early to beat the heat. We left the coral just after 8 A.M. It was a neat ride. Colleen’s horse would not stop eating everything in site. After a little while she figured him out and got him under control. I was impressed on how well the horses could handle the steep mountain trails.

Back at our campsite the girls found a pack of weasel. They were running all over the place.

  Look a the creepy blue eyes.

After the horse ride we went to some other parts of the park.

As soon as we see water the kids are in it.

Here we are by Alluvial Falls

I like taking pictures of flowers

Colleen likes taking pictures of fences

August and Ashley became Jr. Rangers again.

We needed to get Alyssa a birthday cake and she could not decide on one so we got three (Chocolate, Carrot Cake and Lemon). For dinner we ate fresh ravioli, melon, a sausage that I bought on the first day and keep on ice the whole time that I grilled, and garlic bread. After I grilled the sausage I wrapped the garlic bread in foil and put it on the grill, and it worked perfect. After dinner I put the rest of our fire wood on the charcoal and we got the cakes out.

This was our last night in the mountains. A storm rolled through about 9 PM, but it did not rain. We stayed up late and it was a great night to look at the stars. They were incredible.

Day 8 (Moving again)

I booked the campsites kind of late, so we could not stay at the site we were at for the weekend. So we had to move campsites today. There was someone in the site we were moving to, so we took our time. We had a big breakfast of bacon and pancakes. It turns out everyone likes bacon. We cooked a whole package and I think I only got a piece and a half.

We had some time, so a couple of the girls got their hair washed.

  Here is a picture of our new site. It had some great views of the mountains and the moraine.

More mountain flowers.

 

Ashley finished the last book of the Percy Jackson series and decided to read it again.

After we moved sites we went to Estes Park for a little shopping and ice cream. At Dairy Queen Ashley asked for a twist cone and Aug wanted a vanilla cone. They made two twist cones. When they realized their mistake I got a free cone.

 

We got some fresh corn and fruit for dinner and had a nice relaxing day.

Day 7 (Trail Ridge Road/Roller Coaster)

We got up early again and decided to check out Trail Ridge Road. We drove this 2 years ago, so you would think I could remember how terrified Colleen is of heights. It wasn’t until we were taking turns like this that I remembered. At the first stop Colleen moved back a row and that helped a little bit. You have to have some nerve to drive this road and that was very apparent when we passed a driver going 5 mph and he was actually so afraid that he had crossed the double yellow lines and was half on my side of the road.

 

Here are the kids at one of the stops on Trail Ridge Road

 

We saw several animals at the stops along the road.

This is a yellow bellied marmot

Last year the elk were down by the campground, but because of the heat this year we only saw them up at the higher elevations.

We stopped at the Toll Memorial trail head (Toll was the park superintendent in the 20’s not a coin collector). The trail starts at 12,000 feet and climbs 200 in 1/2 a mile. This hike is through the Alpine Tundra.

Here we are starting up the trail.

There were an unbelievable number of flowers.

We hiked up to the  “Trail Ridge Mountain Index” it is at 12,304 feet, and you can use it to sight landmarks up to 60 miles away.

Ashley was a little crabby, but it made a great picture. 

There we many great views of the mountains. Here are a few pictures of them.

Click to view the full size

We spent the day exploring the  road and stopping to take in the views. When we got back Ashley had to finish her book.

We made a nice dinner I grilled pork chops and we had rice and fruit. We had a brief afternoon rain. Just as the rain started it stopped. It didn’t rain hard enough to put out the charcoal. We have decided the best fire for making S’moores is the charcoal, so we had S’moores and then used the charcoal to start a fire.

Day 6 (Hiking)

We got up early today and drove to the park and ride. From there we took a shuttle to Bear Lake. When we were waiting for the shuttle a large crowd was gathering. I was thinking there is no way all these people are getting on the next shuttle. I was wrong. After all the seats were taken they started packing us in the isles and doorways. We were standing next to the rear doors, and that was fine until they had to open them, because they opened in. We managed to survive the trip and were ready to hike.

Here are the girls right before we started on the hike.

 

 

 

 

We went on the Nymph, Dream, Emerald Lake hike. We took this hike last year and most of it was covered in snow. We couldn’t wait to see how it would be a month later in the season.

Here we are at Nymph lake.

 

 

 

 

We found some snow, but it wasn’t the same.

 

 

 

 

 

We stopped at Dream Lake and had lunch.

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a shot of Dream Lake and the mountains.

 

 

 

 

 

Here are the kids on the trail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alexis kept climbing out on rocks, and she couldn’t always get back. Here I am helping here back. I grabbed her hand and started to count, but she jumped on 1. Luckily I was ready and she made it safely back to shore.

 

Here are the kids at Emerald Lake. Last year it was half frozen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the way back we went off the trail a little bit and found this neat area. The kids climbed up this rock and we took some pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the picture at the top of the rock. The only problem was Aug’s hat.

 

 

 

 

Alyssa pulled Aug’s hat off, Aug swatted Alexis, and Alexis snapped her head back into Alyssa’s, and Ashley just kept smiling for the picture.

 

 

Here is a great shot from that area next to Emerald Lake.

 

 

 

 

Here is a Stellar Jay we saw on the way back.

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a picture of Dream Lake that is actually 4 pictures stitched together.

 

 

 

After we finished hiking we were tired and couldn’t decide what to do for dinner. Alexis kept bugging us to go our for pizza and we finally gave in. We went to the Village Pizza in Estes Park. They have a great “The Works” pizza that we love. Everything was going great until Colleen looked over at Alexis and noticed something was wrong. Colleen asked Alexis if she was choking and Alexis did not respond. Alexis grabbed her drink and took a sip, but something was still not right. It turns out she took a big bite of cheese and it was so gooey that half of it went down her thought and half stayed in her mouth, but the halves were still connected. She was finally able to swallow the rest and everything was ok. This was a first for us, and it was a good time to remind the kids of the universal sign for choking. 

We headed back to Rock Mountain National Park and went to a ranger program. It was at the Amphitheater in the campground. I did not know it would be so high tech. It was a computerized slide show with sound and video. Everyone thought it was great. We like it so much we went back the next 2 night to see more.

Day 5 (Moving)

Today we packed up and moved twice. We need to be out of the lodge by 10 and our campsite by 12. Everyone took a shower before we left the lodge, because we knew it would be our last one for awhile. We were out of the lodge by 9 and went to the campsite.

This year I started putting charcoal in the fire pit and putting a grill grate on top to cook. I love cooking with charcoal. We grilled hotdogs and chicken sausage for lunch, and packed up the camper. We were out of Aspen Glen campground right at 12. We drove over to Moraine Campground and got the camper setup again. We decided to go down to one of our favorite places the Cub Lake trailhead.

We got to the trail around 2. Here is a cool flower. There are so many more flowers this year.

 

 

 

Here is another picture of one of the best views in the park.

 

 

 

 

 

More wild flowers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As soon as we got down to the Big Thompson River the kids jumped right in. They couldn’t stay in the water for long, because it was so cold.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After we played in the water for awhile we drove into Estes Park to get groceries. We saw this Coyote. We found out later that she is guarding her 5 pups.

 

 

I grilled (charcoal in the fire pit again) hamburgers. The kids said they were the best hamburgers they ever had.

We went to bed early, because we were going hiking in the morning.

Day 4 (Camping, Hiking, Grilling)

The storm was pretty intense, so we all stayed at the lodge.










We got up early and I made breakfast on using the STINKERATOR (Stove, Sink, Refrigerator). I made some scrambled eggs, Canadian bacon, and English muffins. Everything was going great until BEEP-BEEP-BEEP. The dam smoke alarm went off. It was 7:30 in the morning. We moved the toaster to the door and turned off everything else and it finally stopped. 








We headed over to our campsite around 8:30. It was perfect. Sunny, 70, quiet, and a perfect view.

Here is Colleen and Ashley enjoying the sun.













We decided to go for a hike. We walked down to a trail. It was supposed to be a combination horse/hiking trail, but there has been so much rain it was a mess.  Here are some pictures from the hike. I really like the tree that grew around the bolder and then fell over.

We did not hike to long because the trail sucked (it smelled like the zoo). We got back to our campsite and grilled hotdogs and sausage for lunch. After we ate we headed back to the lodge.