Our First Trip to Colorado: Day 5, Part 2

When we made it back to the start, we decided to hike to Nymph Lake. I think we were both a bit surprised by the steady gain in this hike. We were a bit disappointed by Nymph Lake, as it seemed more like a swamp compared to Bear Lake. 

As flatlanders, we were starting to feel the altitude (and in hindsight, lack of food), so we did not continue on to Dream Lake. It's on our list for our next trip to RMNP.

We returned to our car, and saw more elk on our drive out of the park. 

By now, it was late enough so that we could check into our hotel, so we drove over to Amberwood. Check in was quick, and we took some time to rest before going in search of an early dinner. Amberwood is older (think wood panel walls and green carpet), but we were very impressed by how clean it was. The location was great, and the price couldn't be beat.

Dinner was at Wapiti, and we enjoyed it. Great bison and elk burgers, and great beer selection for Nick. 

After dinner, we walked around town and shopped a bit, before driving over to Sheep Lake, to see if we could see some Bighorns. No luck with the bighorns, but what a beautiful area! 

After searching for bighorns and enjoying the views, we backtracked to Safeway to pick up some sandwich stuff for picnic lunches. THAT was an experience I don't care to repeat. VERY crowded. Thankfully there were some locals happily pointing out where items were located, so we made it out relatively unscathed. This wrapped up our evening.

Our First Trip to Colorado: Day 5, part 1

8/7/13

This day began early in Colorado Springs. My original plan had been to drive to Grand Lake, and then travel Trail Ridge Road to Estes Park. However, we all know what they say about the best laid plans. The night before leaving, we discovered the forecast had changed from afternoon thunderstorms to morning steady rain and afternoon storms. Not wanting to drive TRR in the rain, I had spent the evening mapping out a new route, to best avoid rush hour traffic, and the toll road. Colorado has this one toll road that is electronic (license plate based) only. It can totally be avoided, but it’s the fastest route, because people are avoiding the toll and using other routes, so I had to disobey the GPS, by planning things on my own. The GPS I was using for this trip was a bit...old.

We checked out of the Mining Exchange in Colorado Springs about 6:30 am. We were sad to be leaving such a beautiful and awesome hotel, but excited to be starting the next part of our CO adventure. We headed north on 25, stopping just for a quick breakfast for Nick at Burger King, since apparently cereal bars don’t hold him as well as they do me. It rained until a little south of Denver, where we headed west a bit and the mountains were a bit socked in by clouds until we got close to Estes Park. 

We arrived in Estes Park mid-morning, stopping at the Estes Park visitor center for some brochures. Once those had been obtained, since it was just overcast and not raining, we headed into the park. By Morraine Park we had our first elk sighting, which was VERY exciting! I had seen some in Yellowstone 10 years ago, but for this East Coaster, seeing elk will never lose its thrill. 

Once we'd gotten our fill of pictures, we continued on to the Park and Ride, where we hopped on a waiting bus for Bear Lake. Because of limited parking at the trailheads for the Bear Lake area, there are several park and rides set up throughout the park, with VERY frequent buses, and very accurate signs about parking availability, so that you don’t waste time in parking lots that are full. We both were impressed with this service.

Bear Lake was gorgeous, and it took a long time to walk around because we were stopping OFTEN for pictures. 

Our First Trip to Colorado: Day 4

8/6/13

Our last full day in the Springs started with another pancake breakfast at Over Easy. Again, excellent food and service. We were sad that we wouldn't have time to eat there again. 

After breakfast, we made the drive out to Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. This was not crowded at all. They were out of trail maps, but the girl in the visitor center went over a map with us, pointing us in the direction of the Petrified trail, which was perfect. Seeing the petrified redwoods was what brought us all the way to Florissant. We loved walking around the national monument. So beautiful, and for a couple New Englanders, it was VERY cool to see the Petrified Redwoods, particularly the only known trio of petrified Redwoods. 

We were glad we got there by mid-morning though, as it got quite hot. We could have spent a lot of time there, exploring other trails, but we had lots more we wanted to do that day, so we decided to move along after the Petrified trail.

From Florissant, we headed for the Manitou Cliff Dwelling Museum. We enjoyed this. It was neat to be able to walk through the dwelling, and the indoor museum was huge! It's not a place I need to return to, but we were both very happy to have gone once.

Time for lunch. We decided to try to find something for lunch in Old Colorado City. We ended up at Pizzeria Rustica, and we were glad we did. Great lunch. Delicious pizza and gelato. And Nick enjoyed the end of the meal chocolate covered espresso beans. I didn’t. I’m sure my Italian grandmother is rolling in her grave, but I just don’t like espresso.

After lunch we returned to Garden of the Gods, to see what we had missed on Sunday: Balanced Rock. I know a lot of people complain that there is cement holding it together, but being from NH, where various cables held the Old Man of the Mountain in place for years, we understood (and seeing the behavior of visitors, appreciated) the need. We were just impressed that a formation like that had ever formed. We were impressed with the scenery around it too.

From Garden of the Gods, we moved on to the Olympic Training Center, where we arrived about 5 minutes before the movie to begin the 3pm tour started. Great movie intro and great tour. Our tour guide was very enthusiastic and a wealth of information. It was quite inspirational to visit this attraction.

After the tour it was back to downtown, where we parked the car, dumped off belongings at the hotel, and then walked a few blocks for dinner at Rasta Pasta, a rather unique restaurant. This place served only pasta dishes, but they all had some Jamaican inspiration. My dish had pineapple in it, for example. Again, great meal. The rest of the evening was spent preparing to leave early the next morning for the final leg of the trip: Rocky Mountain National Park! We couldn’t believe how quickly this trip was going!