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We first visited Rocky Mountain National Park near Estes Park, Colorado 9 or 10 years ago. We lived in Wichita, Kansas at the time so we brought Kelly Jo's parents and her sister Kimberly on a whirlwind trip to this beautiful state and the last day included 4 or 5 hours in the Rocky Mountain National Park. We thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it and promised ourselves that we would come back to see more of it someday. That day finally arrived and in our characteristic fashion we were riding another whirlwind. We rented a campground for two nights and wish we could explore this area for a week. It is an absolutely beautiful place!
The first elk we saw this time was on the road to Bear Lake. The sun was shining very bright and it took forever to snap a picture that could be seen! It was worth it. Please remember that all these picture were taken on the run with my iPhone...
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We drove up to Bear Lake in the evening and it was a gorgeous drive. Bear Lake is over 9500 feet above sea level and is literally breathtaking! We unloaded Odie's power chair and she made the "walk" with us. We sat up there for quite a while and soaked in the beauty of God's creation. I mentioned earlier that we live our lives in a whirlwind as most folks do and truth be known we probably wouldn't be comfortable living any other way. But it has certainly been good for us to slow down a bit and catch our breath. I can't think of a better way to recharge than admiring the handiwork of God that is so evident. I think our down time is going to be good for us not only physically, but spiritually and emotionally.
We spent a whole day driving the 46 miles or so of the Trail Ridge Road. It goes across the park climbing to over 12000 feet above sea level. In fact over 8 miles of the road lies above 11000 feet. It has numerous pullouts, overlooks, roads that lead to other areas of the park, as well as the Alpine Visitors Center. The Visitor Center is about 11800 feet above sea level and it is a beautiful place.
When we finished the drive we had a picnic lunch that Kelly Jo had prepared and then we turned around and drove the 46 miles back to Estes Park. It was worth every mile!
Here are a few pictures of the trip.
Kelly Jo and Odie at the Alpine Visitor Center
On the west side of the park we saw more elk than we could count in the long wide valley that runs along the road. The valley is still above 7500-8000 feet and is full of elk. It is also a great place to see Moose but they alluded us today.
These 4 elk are the biggest we saw but unfortunately I wasn't able to get very close to them. The racks on these make the elk at the top of this page look like youngsters.
Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Thanks for all the nice emails about the pictures we post here. Please leave a comment below as well..
God Bless you,
Davy
