We spent the whole day in the Rocky Mountains today, leaving about 9am with our picnic cooler full. Dan, in the front seat, was trying to take pictures for me, but I'm not sure that he has met his calling yet. We swirled round and round, going higher and higher; the views were wonderful. We saw sheep and elk on our journey, but no moose. They say the animals are getting fewer and fewer around there and everytime you find any the cars stop, people pile out and cameras start clicking.
We went through Estes Park, where the senior Jordans used to live. The town has changed a lot since they lived there. Even I don't remember that many tourists being around on previous trips. On the other side of the town we headed even higher, running into 'road work' including scraping the road of all the pavement. It's kinda of bad timing, but the only time that they can do repairs is when it's tourist season. The roads we were traveling on a closed in the fall with about 15-20 feet of snow covering everything. In some photos you will see the poles that show the snowplows where the road edge is located...snow is usually near the top of these tall skinny poles in winter.
We stopped up a side road and found a place to have our picnic of turkey sandwiches, fruit, potato salad, chips, and drinks. These birds kept squalking from their perches a few feet away from us, begging for a handout. Claude finally threw a cracker to them and they left, right as I decided to get a photo of them. But Dan had gotten a picture early on, but you have to look hard to see this gray bird!
We'd planned to go all the way across the mountains, but changed our minds when we discovered another road crew working. Each one had pilot cars to take you through the one-way areas so we'd sit about 10-15 minutes each time. We turned around at the second one and cut our losses.
We stopped off at the Mountain Munchies Tiki Bar in Estes Park on our way back through. Claude used to work with the owner when he was associated with the Crossroads Ministry through his then church. Sallie, was younger than I am, and had just brought her mother from FL to live there. We had a delightful talk while sipping our cokes and root beer outdoors.
We were so tired of riding and I took a siesta when we got back about 4:30. We've just had crab cakes for supper and the guys are talking about the crappy Sears Service Dept. I bailed.
My camera battery was low most of the time today; Danny had kept it on a lot during the early part of the journey. I sat in front on the way back, but managed to get a few more pictures before the thing totally died on me. You can see the pictures on the right side of this page called "In the Mountains."
We may leave here on Thursday. Not sure what tomorrow holds; probably laundry.
