Day 6

October 17 2009 Saturday

Woke up early and had a wonderful breakfast of biscuits, bacon and hot cocoa. Drove out to the Rocky Mountain National Park somewhere near Denver. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous! We are surrounded on all sides by mountains, the top most peaks are covered in patches of snow and lots of rocks and evergreen trees on the lower ones. The weather was perfect – sunny and not too cold. I took lots of pictures. The mountain backdrop was breathtaking. (Literally! It takes your breath away since the air is so thin.) We reached the park and there is a pretty valley where we might expect to see some wildlife. Hiked through the grass, across a small stream, and over there by the trees! A herd of elk!! Awesome! Some had red collars to identify them. There was a male buck with his harem of females. (We saw elk but no bighorn sheep so Aunt Allison owes Skyler $2 for a bet.) That was exciting! Then we hiked up a mountain trail to see Alberta falls. The thin mountain air and steep climb was exhausting. I was huffing and puffing the whole way up. It was a long hike, and there was lots of snow on the trail! Large patches of it! There was ice on the path that turned to dirty slush. The sun was out and with the exercise I didn’t even need my jacket. The weather was surprisingly warm considering there was snow everywhere. Perfect day for a hike!
We saw lots of streams (probably all the same one winding around the path deceiving me into thinking its not.) One of them had a branch hanging over the rushing water and it was covered in long silver icicles!! I ate some snow along the way. It tastes like a flavorless snow cone – how interesting, imagine that. I should have brought some flavored syrups and had a party. Another stream we passed had patches of ice where the water froze. Very thin ice that cracked and broke apart when stepped on or hit with a stick. Do not try walking on it, even in the shallow areas or your feet will get really cold as the water seeps into your shoes. Sklyer apparently doesn’t mind cold wet feet, he waded right through the icy water in his bare feet to chase after a fish.
We finally made it to the falls! Water spilling across the rocks and roaring past as it tumbles around smooth river stones. There were some cute chipmunks and plenty of other tourists watching the water fall down the cliff and splash across a pile of boulders. Very pretty. The way back down was so much easier and quicker than coming up. It was also a bit slippery, the path was covered in melting snow and ice slushies just waiting to trip people. I had the video camera ready to record someone falling on their butt. We were all extra careful and made it down without any super embarrassing moments. Darn. I love this park! So beautiful!
I bought more postcards and we had lunch at a Tapas restaurant. Came home and tried to download my pictures to my portable hard drive. I was out of space on my memory cards. Turns out they have a Mac and when I tried to hook up my hard dive, it recognized that it was connected, but wouldn’t let me transfer pictures onto it. Since I am not familiar with apple computers, I didn’t understand how to fix the problem. I ended up bringing in my computer and setting it all up. I brought my computer with me even though it’s a desktop and doesn’t like to travel well. Yay I can take more pictures now!