We took an early flight in that first day so we could drive out passed Estes Park for some Rocky Mountain National Park exploration. The photos from that day were just gorgeous.
The views were just awesome from every angle and location...
We even saw some Buffalo roaming (they might have really been Elk, but I like the imagery of roaming buffaloes), right from the road in our car... it was really neat.
You could climb through the whole park in your car (with lots of places to park and take photos)and it was incredible to see the climate/environmental changes on the way up...
We were there the week of the big Boulder, CO fire that made news everywhere. In fact it had just started the morning of this (below) photo and many people on the trails with us didn't yet know what was going on...
Beside the elk, we also got up close and personal with different types of wildlife that brave these climates... it was neat to see different animals and birds as we climbed higher and higher... this bright blue bird spent some time singing us a song...
And they certainly weren't afraid of us... this fat little chimpmunk snuggled right into this little girls lofty perch:
I also made Jonathan do some climbing for more photo ops...
While we climbed we added layers and layers to our outfits... it's a good thing we had our suitcases with us.
Clearly we had some sun/shade/wind issues in our posed photos... but still glad we made the climb.
Totally worth it for this awesome view:
We ended our journey at about 12,000 feet... not because we couldn't go a bit higher, but mostly because we had important dinner plans and had to get back. The last area we saw though is classified as tundra... it was such a neat (albiet very cold and windy) atmosphere...
A lot less green, no trees, much more desolate:
It also got so much harder to breathe as we got higher, you could really feel how thin the air was here... it was exhausting just to walk from the car up a 1/4 mile path.
It felt like we could just see forever... and in fact we were told some days you can see four states from the park... I'm pretty sure we never knew just exactly which direction we were facing to work that out, but we did see lots of cool things.
Definitely a place I'm glad I spent some time at, and hope the next time you're near you'll bring a picnic lunch and block out the whole day. You won't be dissapointed.