Sunday, July 26, 2009

Sights from CO


This is the first time I have had to post some of the fun things I saw in CO. On Saturday I had a day off and I went to the Rocky Mountain National Park. I saw lots of beautiful things, only a few of them are here. It was free admission day, what an extra bonus that was. Yes even thought it is summer, there is still snow on the mountains. I understand that it is present all year long. But what would I know I live in AZ.


I learned how to take black & white pictures with my camera and I took a few just to try it. This is the same scene as the color one above.


I took a dirt road up to the top, it was the Old Falls River road. It was 9 miles long with lots of switch backs. Luckily it was one way only. There were lots of beautiful water falls, here is the biggest one I saw and I walked a ways down the path. My husband was very surprised I took the rental car on a dirt road. I look at it this way if I would do it with my car, I can do it with a rental car.


If you click on this picture you can enlarge the picture. You will notice as the rocks and snow meet, there is a start of a stream. There were lots of these streams that all merged into the big stream below, where I took pictures of the water falls. Since I never spent a lot of times in the mountains I found this very interesting.


Well I finally reached the top. I could have gone on a hike and go a little higher, but something told me I'm a lot higher than usual and I'm not as young as I used to be, so maybe you better not climb that hill. So I didn't. I think it was a good thing I listened to myself, because after I ate lunch I had a little issue with altitude sickness. I began to feel mildly nauseated and dizzy. So I drank more water, rested and looked out a window at the scenery for a while. And I moved to lower altitude, as the directions on the wall said to do. I can follow instructions. It was amazing at how deep the snow was in places. This store is above the tree line.


On my trip back to the bottom of the mountain I was scared. The road was narrow plus on the passenger side of the car, there was no guard rail and a very big drop off. I'm a girl, so I know my depth perception is a little off. Needless to say I hugged the double yellow line. I didn't want to be anywhere close to that edge. This was a magnificent elk I saw sitting in this field. He hardly moved, he was so statuesque. Lots of people had their tripods out and were taking pictures, it was almost like he was posing. I did finally see him move his head. So he was real. My next sight was a herd of elk. I would say there was about 50 of them. I took a picture but I didn't post it. I didn't want to bore you to tears.


The night before I left to come home I and two co-workers Lydia and Andrea went to Estes Park, we went to the Stanley Hotel and we were able to join a tour. Our tour guide was Patti and she was excellent. It was the last tour of the day, so she took her time, it was two hours long. She told us all the ghost stories. Steven King, the movie The Shinning and of course the Stanleys. Afterwards we had a great dinner at Twin Oaks. It was a good way to end the trip.

It was nice to see all this but it is nice to be home.

Mary Mary

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