08/08/2018
Waking up the first day as Mrs. Haas – yay!
Ashley and Megan head back to San Antonio this evening, so we decided to drive through the Rocky Mountain National Park on their last day. We took two cars because they were going to continue on Trail Ridge Rd to Estes Park and go to the airport from there. Kevin and I were going to drive to the top then turn around. Nolan and Cameron decided hanging out with Mimi, Earl, Kevin, Camille and Benjamin sounded like a better plan than ours. We paid our admission ($20/car – probably need to look into a National Park pass), then pulled over on the shoulder to look at the map and come up with a plan of places we wanted to make sure we stopped at.
There’s really no words to describe the beauty of this place. I want to hold my cell phone out the window and snap picture after picture, one view more spectacular than the next, but they never do it justice. I’m pretty sure we stopped at every lookout point and took at least 50 pictures at each, all with the most amazing backgrounds. As the kids and I like to say – “Good job God!”
One of our main goals when we come here is to see wildlife. Unfortunately, they must have been on strike this year. At one point, we saw a group of people pulled over, kind of gazing in one direction. We followed lead and hiked up a small hill to see what they were looking at, but it must have been gone by then, because we didn’t see a thing. Last year, when there were hoards of people pulled over and out of their cars, we were lucky enough to see moose (or is it meese or meeses?) right up close and got some great pictures! Also, last year, there was a herd of antelope so close to the road, I could have reached out and high-fived them. But, not so much this year . . . . These next pictures were taken last year, but I thought it was so cool that I included them.
This drive on Trail Ridge Road through the park is SUPER nerve racking and scary (at least to me it is) and makes Berthoud Pass look like a walk in the park. There are sharp drop offs to your death, no shoulder accompanied by hair pin turns. I have to close my eyes in several spots, grab onto Kevin’s leg and sing tunes in my head to distract myself. What is it about the older I get, the more of a weenie I am about things like this? I am definitely not what you’d call an “adrenaline junky” at this stage in life. Luckily, we managed not to plummet to our deaths.
We stopped at one of our favorite places in the park, Lake Irene. Typically, we do a picnic here, but it was too early to eat, so we did the little hike around the lake and gawked at how gorgeous it is. Oh, we did see some cute chipmunks here (we’ll call that wildlife), two that were chasing each other and ran right between my feet and one little cutie that was having a snack on some vegetation.
Also, Kevin and I figured how to do panoramic shots on our phones – so cool!!
We got up to the last stop before Kevin and I turned around, and all shared a turkey sandwich picnic at 12,000 feet in the car, with the windows down. Not a bad view for lunch!
On the way home, we stopped in Grand Lake for an ice cream cone to enjoy by the lake – one of our traditions we do every year.
Turns out Cameron, Kevin, Camille and Benjamin had the same idea and were playing at the park right by us, so we stopped to say hi. They had just rented a pontoon boat with Mimi. Benjamin “skinny dipped” (that boy loves to be naked!!) and Cameron got in the water up to her waste – burr!! They had a great time.
We got back to the cabin and decided to take Chewy over the Y and give the dog park another chance. This time without time constraints, so he could explore his little heart out. Alan and Nancy were going to bring Duke and Roxy to play too. First, we met them at tubing hill to cheer them on for a couple of runs. Chewy enjoyed that part too, greeting everyone as they came off the lift.
Once in the dog park, Duke and Chewy ran at least 1000 miles, in an out of the brush and trees and wore them selves out. Roxy did not – lol!
That evening Kevin and I got to have a “date night” – the first one as Mr & Mrs Haas. The kids stayed at home with Mimi and had s’mores at the Taylors. We went to one of our favorite restaurants, Fontenots, with fabulous Cajun food and a great outdoor patio. Started off with crab cakes (to die for), then shared a salad, gumbo, sausage Po Boy and chicken fried steak with andouille sausage gravy. Accompanied with some yummy rum punch for me and beer for Kevin. We pretty much had to roll ourselves out of there. We headed home to pack our stuff up and get the car loaded as much as possible. We were leaving early in the morning to head back to Texas – driving straight through this time.
Mimi and Nolan finished off the night with a game of ping pong – look at those moves!
To Have And To Haas 