Rocky Mountain National Park!!! Mom and I went last weekend and we had a blast. Here are all the pics - if you’re on dialup, you’re hating life…We were up and on our way around 10 am - it was about 70 and climbing - keep that in mind for later. Click any thumbnail for a larger photo.

Here we are on the road to Estes:

Here we are heading into Estes - yes that’s a rare photo of me:

We stopped at Estes for lunch - ate at one of the local places and then mom shopped around for a bit. Then we headed into the park:

No sooner had we entered the park, then we saw Elk!!!

That was actually a couple of separate herds that we saw one after the other - the second set stood about 20 feet from the car - it was amazing!!

Here mom can be seen taking a photo:

And here’s what she was taking a photo of:

We came up this mountain and found a huge observation point - that’s where we pulled over and took the amazing photos you see above and below this. I did want to point out the rock in the next couple of photos though - because I know someone who’d love to climb the damned thing…:

CRITTER ALERT:

Now we’re starting to head higher up on Trail Ridge Road and there’s lots more snow and the temperature is dropping. It’s okay though, cuz I kept saying how we needed to take coats. You can see the snow pack in a couple of these photos - it’s actually higher than the cars…

CRITTER ALERT: That’s a marmot - well, a couple of em. A family, actually:

Hey now - look at that temperature drop! Good thing we brought coats!!!

Shit. I forgot my coat. -.- I HAD TO BUY YET ANOTHER TOURIST COAT - THAT’S LIKE 3 NOW!!!

Well, we’re on our way down the other side now - yes, we decided to just keep going rather than turn back to Estes. It was fitting, though, that we saw more Elk on the way out

Here we are at Grand Lake - this is also where we chose to have dinner.

Here’s where we had the aforementioned dinner - a cool little place with peanut shells on the floor and a killer grille in the back:

And here we are on the way home - took a while, but we did get there eventually:

Overall, we had a BLAST! It was so much fun!! We’ll probably do it again soon

Hope you enjoyed looking at these photos as much as we enjoyed taking them.

~P