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.