Epic Road Trip 2017 Day #3

This morning we slept in a little and woke up to another beautiful morning in Rocky Mountain National Park.  Katy made some coffee in her camp coffee press and we headed out to explore the park.  We started out by traveling to the Alpine Visitor Center via the Old Fall River Road.

The road was a one way, gravel path up about 4,000 feet.  There were lots of turn-outs that led to great views of the river as it traveled down the mountain.  A couple of times we stopped and got to take a short hike down to the river itself.  It was quite chilly next to the snow-melt fed river, sometimes 20 degrees cooler than the surrounding air.

As we made it to the top of the mountain, we saw a Yellow-Bellied Marmot scampering across the road.  Once we made it to the visitor's center, which is the highest in the National Park system at 11,796 feet, we had spectacular views of much of the park.  We had a quick lunch and I picked up a shirt at the gift shop.

We headed back down via the paved Trail Ridge Road, which was a bit quicker, but also with great views.  When we were done with our drive and hikes we came back to the campsite and took a nap while it rained.  After the rain stopped, we re-packed the truck after we had moved things around the past couple of days.  We went to a couple of new places in the park, looking for wildlife, but were pretty unsuccessful.  The vistas and the scenery were awesome, but there was a lack of wildlife.  We went to sheep lakes and did not see any bighorn sheep.  We did see a couple of deer and a few elk.

 We ate dinner at the Trailhead Restaurant near the Fall River Visitor Center.  Katy had the elk burger and I had the elk stew, which was delicious.

We went back to the campsite and had a relaxing evening with Katy knitting and me reading my book.  At 7:30 we went to the camp program, which was a history of Rocky Mountain National Park mixed in with a sing-along of some Rocky Mountain related songs.  Today's "What We Learned" was about someone known as the "National Parks Lady."  Mary Belle King Sherman was instrumental in the formation of the early National Park system and in Rocky Mountain National Park in particular.

For the day we traveled 77.7 miles and saw license plates from 39 states.

Epic Road Trip 2017- Day #2

Woke up after the blah first day ready to tackle the road and find some fresh mountain air far from the blistering plains of Kansas. Unfortunately we discovered 200 miles more of windswept open prairie.
There was hope though when we spied the Rockies far off in the distance at the mid morning point

After skirting around Denver, Dean found a nice yarn store in Longmont, CO for me to explore. We loved the downtown area and enjoyed walking Main Street and finding gems like...
The Longmont Yarn Shoppe (dumpling bag by binkwaffle, yarn by MJ Yarns - in the limited Stephen West colorway!, gauge ruler by Ann Budd)
Scrumptious Ice Cream
and that adorable courtyard

After ice cream and a quick book store  stop, we were off for our campsite in Rocky Mountain National Park. We snapped a few pictures on the way to Estes Park, CO

Tucker is a huge fan of getting his picture taken at park signs too!

We made a few stops to check out the scenery on the way to our campsite at Glacier Basin, which we obviously made into a Chevrolet commercial with our Colorado in Colorado. That is Long's Peak in the distance, the highest point in the park at 14,000+ ft elevation.

While we were enjoying our evening snack a deer came up behind our campsite and enjoyed the quiet of our spot. Our campfire was spot on with nice dry wood and burned down pretty quickly before we went to the ranger talk for the evening.

Overall a pretty fantastic day, with only a few snafus from the house in Berryville, which will be resolved shortly.

What We Learned:  Today during the evening ranger talk, we learned all about Long's Peak, a mountain in RMNP that stands at 14,259 feet.  We learned many things about the mountain, and technical climbing in general, but the most interesting part was about a paraplegic ranger named Mike Smithson.  He was a park ranger that fell out of a tree and lost the use of his legs.  He had wanted to climb Long's Peak prior to the injury, but had never made the climb.  After the injury, he dedicated himself to making the climb and was able to summit the mountain by dragging himself along with his arms.

For the day we saw 35 state license plates, a Cherokee Nation plate, and drove a total of 304 miles.

Epic Road Trip 2017 - Day #1

Today we started our summer 2017 adventure.  We have been planning this trip for quite some time and we were very excited to get started.  Until we got in the car, that is.  Up until we left, we had been at our new house in Berryville and had our things delivered to the house.  We were busy putting some things where they belonged and enjoying the finished house.  When it came time to leave this morning we both were a little more hesitant than we expected.  Likely a lot of this feeling came from knowing that the majority of our trip would be across the flatlands of Kansas.

Despite the initial lack of enthusiasm, as the day went on we became more excited for what was ahead.  We got back into our "extended road trip" mode pretty fast.  We played the license plate game, and "cows on my side" game, with a "manatee" twist (cow in the water).  We took a few breaks, including one in the town of Salina (shout-out to the Linvilles!) where we had some sushi.

We also kept Katy caffeinated, which greatly improved the "blah" day we were having.  I drove more than I usually do so that Katy could knit on her sweater.

Another thing we always like to do is take a picture with Tucker the traveling bear at state signs, national parks, and anywhere else we think is cool.  We stopped at the Kansas border and snapped a quick picture.

Something new for this trip was that we wanted to highlight something that we learned each day.  Today in "What We Learned" we discovered the Basilica of St. Fidelis in Victoria, Kansas.  We had been on a particularly boring stretch of highway for a while when Katy said, "That's a castle!"  As we got closer, it did indeed resemble a castle, but was actually the aforementioned Basilica.  It was a Catholic church that was built from 1908-1911, and recently elevated to the level of a minor Basilica in 2014.  The most interesting fact I read was that all members of the town of Victoria 12 years and older was asked to pay $45 and contribute six wagon-loads of stone for the construction.

Bonus "What We Learned" - Wilson, Kansas is home to the world's largest "Czech Egg" at 22 feet.

We stopped for the night in Colby, Kansas at the Comfort Inn, and were looking forward to heading to Rocky Mountain National Park the next day.

For the day we saw license plates from 1 different states and from the Cherokee Nation.  We traveled 561 miles.