Estes Park, Day Two
The kids were rustling at about 7:30, but Leslie and I camped out in bed until a little after nine.
After a breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast, we make peanut butter sandwiches and Goldfish and juice bags and headed to the Bear Lake area of RMNP. If you have been here before, then you know it is a popular area of the park due to little effort = great views. However, we avoided Bear Lake and took the road less travelled, but not that less travelled on a cool morning, and headed toward our destinations of Nymph Lake, Dream Lake, and Emerald Lake.
The hike in the beginning was steep noticeably. We welcomed Jeb's desire to climb the rocks because those stops afforded us breath catching opportunities.
Nymph Lake is small, my guess is about five acres. Snow was clinging in patches big enough for the kids to throw snowballs at us and for Jeb to eat a snowball avoiding dirt and straw, we think. Nymph Lake was beautiful, but my reading indicated that Dream Lake is appropriately named so we tarried not.
About .7 tenths of a mile up from Nymph, we crossed a small log bridge and came to Dream Lake situated at 10,080 feet with Hallett's Peak in the background. Soon, we hope to post pictures. It was an outstanding location with boulders and aspens and lodgepole pines nestled against the lake enough for beauty but little enough to make exploring the water's edge easy. We did.
At this point, we made a family decision that Dream Lake would be it for this hike. This was due to the falling temps, the cloudy skies, and the sustained winds. Caleb, Leslie, and Erin headed back while Jeb and I lingered and walked to the far edge of Dream Lake for some throwing and kicking of rocks.
We ate our sandwiches and such in the Bear Lake parking lot. Sometime, I want to write about the dominance of the Goldfish cracker. They have taken over families.
On our return we made a quick cabin stop for some crucial meds and then walked the town. Here, we noticed two things interesting to us. People take their dogs everywhere and, here in Colorado, the heart of Colorado, we found two, not one, two Nebraska Cornhusker spirit/fan shops. These were permanent business establishments.
While in one arts/crafts/knife/pottery/fleece establishment, Caleb noticed a t.v. in the back with the A&M game on. It was the third quarter and close. We finished our looking and made it back to the cabin. Remember, we have two working channels. One is ESPN, just the one with the A&M game. Ch-ching.
We watched. We won. We rested about 30 minutes and have just returned from a trip in the park looking for and finding many elk and deer. Caleb and I got out for a brief jaunt to the Alluvial Fan area and heard the elk bugling which takes on an eerie quality in the twilight, in the mist, in nature, alone.
Tomorrow, we will have our own church service, hike to some falls, drive Trail Ridge Road and see what else happens.
Tonight's meal = Spam cooked over an open fire served with saltines and cheddar cheese. We would have Chips Ahoy cookies for desert but the boys ate all of them during the game. Most likely, the girls will eat left over spaghetti.
After supper, a family game of Chickenfoot.
Gone from Kind Coffee.
After a breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast, we make peanut butter sandwiches and Goldfish and juice bags and headed to the Bear Lake area of RMNP. If you have been here before, then you know it is a popular area of the park due to little effort = great views. However, we avoided Bear Lake and took the road less travelled, but not that less travelled on a cool morning, and headed toward our destinations of Nymph Lake, Dream Lake, and Emerald Lake.
The hike in the beginning was steep noticeably. We welcomed Jeb's desire to climb the rocks because those stops afforded us breath catching opportunities.
Nymph Lake is small, my guess is about five acres. Snow was clinging in patches big enough for the kids to throw snowballs at us and for Jeb to eat a snowball avoiding dirt and straw, we think. Nymph Lake was beautiful, but my reading indicated that Dream Lake is appropriately named so we tarried not.
About .7 tenths of a mile up from Nymph, we crossed a small log bridge and came to Dream Lake situated at 10,080 feet with Hallett's Peak in the background. Soon, we hope to post pictures. It was an outstanding location with boulders and aspens and lodgepole pines nestled against the lake enough for beauty but little enough to make exploring the water's edge easy. We did.
At this point, we made a family decision that Dream Lake would be it for this hike. This was due to the falling temps, the cloudy skies, and the sustained winds. Caleb, Leslie, and Erin headed back while Jeb and I lingered and walked to the far edge of Dream Lake for some throwing and kicking of rocks.
We ate our sandwiches and such in the Bear Lake parking lot. Sometime, I want to write about the dominance of the Goldfish cracker. They have taken over families.
On our return we made a quick cabin stop for some crucial meds and then walked the town. Here, we noticed two things interesting to us. People take their dogs everywhere and, here in Colorado, the heart of Colorado, we found two, not one, two Nebraska Cornhusker spirit/fan shops. These were permanent business establishments.
While in one arts/crafts/knife/pottery/fleece establishment, Caleb noticed a t.v. in the back with the A&M game on. It was the third quarter and close. We finished our looking and made it back to the cabin. Remember, we have two working channels. One is ESPN, just the one with the A&M game. Ch-ching.
We watched. We won. We rested about 30 minutes and have just returned from a trip in the park looking for and finding many elk and deer. Caleb and I got out for a brief jaunt to the Alluvial Fan area and heard the elk bugling which takes on an eerie quality in the twilight, in the mist, in nature, alone.
Tomorrow, we will have our own church service, hike to some falls, drive Trail Ridge Road and see what else happens.
Tonight's meal = Spam cooked over an open fire served with saltines and cheddar cheese. We would have Chips Ahoy cookies for desert but the boys ate all of them during the game. Most likely, the girls will eat left over spaghetti.
After supper, a family game of Chickenfoot.
Gone from Kind Coffee.
posted by Brian Miller at 5:38 PM
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