Okay...lets back up a little and talk about last night (August 7). The campground is pretty primitive, has no showers or running water but its worth it to see the views from the park, itself.
We were in bed by nine after two long days of driving. We got a good night's rest with much much cooler weather (45-50 degrees) and some rain in the night. It was so quiet and then started raining and all we could hear was the rain and some light wind whistling through the pines overhead. It was a very peaceful feeling laying there in the warm, dry tent. Don't worry Virginia, we saw no bears! But we did see a herd of elk in the meadow below the moraine we are camping on. The only word I can think of to describe them and the mountains they live in is 'majestic'.
In the morning we were up at 6:00 a.m. Mostly because we both had to go to the bathroom. The restrooms are sophisticated:) outhouses and ours happens to be down a steep hill so I REALLY have to go to walk down there because the walk back uphill in this altitude is killer!
We left the campground and went to Estes Park to use the showers and do some laundry...and I could do some texting and get online using the wi-fi at the local cafe to update this and check facebook just in case anyone is trying to get in touch with us. We had breakfast and visited with the young waiter who happened to be from Moscow. After that we drove out to the park and did some site-seeing, taking pictures of the mountains an looking for wildlife. We weren't very successful. I told Tyler that I really want to see a bear just as long as s/he doesn't see me:). We took a walk on the Sprague Lake Nature Trail and got some great pictures of some of the bigger mountains with the lake in the foreground. They were absolutely breathtaking...I don't know how else to describe them.
As I mentioned before, we've been wanting to see some animals in the meadows or the mountainsides (bighorns) but we hadn't seen anything but some chipmunks and Tyler was getting antsy. We met an older woman on the trail who said the elk had moved to higher ground last week because it had been unseasonably warm so we were lucky to have seen them at all. We drove up and down and around the park, looking for elk or goats or even bears. We stopped at every conceivable overlook, etc. but all we found were those little chipmunks hopping around on the rocks. When we got back to the camp at bout 3:45, I went down to the “restroom” and there were people snapping photos...always a telltale sign that there is something worthwhile to see. You guessed it...three young deer were grazing under a cove of trees right next to someone's campsite. All I had with me was my phone so I took a video and a couple of pictures but I am not sure how they will turn out. Tyler went down there and took the camera and got a great shot of an eight point buck. Later the deer walked right past our campsite and were about 20 feet from me. Todd would have loved it!
We rested in the shade in our chairs and enjoyed the breeze through the pine trees at our campsite and then left to go back to town for dinner. The problem with that is that Estes Park is sort of like a small Gatlinburg...there are people everywhere and parking is a problem. We were hoping to find a sports bar where we could watch the Hall of Fame Game (Bengals vs Cowboys).
We went to a local pizza place and watched the first quarter of the game and then decided to post this and go back to camp and relax. We had a fun day but did a lot of walking and driving and we are ready to relax before going to bed. Tomorrow it is on to Wyoming.
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