“We’re in the Rockies”.

 4/12 Saturday.  We had a short drive up to Estes Park.  We found an RV Park with full hookups on the south side of town for a very reasonable rate.  We are also backed up to the Big Thompson River and surprise, the park is nearly empty.  There are more deer and elk than there are RVs.  

With the trailer set up and the dogs walked, we headed off into Rocky Mountain NP to get a lay of the land.  Obviously there’s quite a bit of park still closed to snowpack.  We drove a short loop after being told by the rangers the park and stops were busy.  We do have Monday and Tuesday to explore with good weather and hopefully less people.  

Back in town there were quite a few people wandering around.  We found some free parking and took to the streets.  There are quite a few nice shops and restaurants in the main downtown area.  We have realized that most tourist towns have the same things/trinkets, just the name has changed.  We did find a thin cut piece of agate to repair our Oregon stone nightlight for the bathroom.  

The afternoon got really windy, gusting to 45 and there is a chance of snow tomorrow.  Today was in the mid 70’s and sunny, we’ll see about the snow.  If the weather is bad, we’re going to visit the historic Stanley Hotel and I’ll probably try an old fashioned at the whiskey bar.  

4/13 Sunday.  We decided to have a down day after almost two weeks of go, go go.  We watched some shows, did some reading and just relaxed.  The weather didn’t turn until late in the evening.  It started snowing at around 9pm.  

4/14 Monday.  By the morning we had about 3-4” of fresh snow and it was all gone by noon. We made breakfast and did a few loads of laundry as it was warming up.  We’re still going to have a load or two for tomorrow.  

Our first stop was the historic Stanley Hotel.  This hotel inspired the movie The Shining and parts of Dumb and Dumber were filmed there too.  We walked around a bit checking things out and then split some Walleye Tacos.  I had a Stanley Old Fashioned at the Whiskey bar and it was one of the best I’ve had.  I’ll be looking for the bitters they use.  After our snack we walked around the place a little longer and snagged a few more photos.  

We then took a drive up into the NP and did the drive the opposite direction of the way we went on Saturday.  We added the few extra miles up to Many Parks Curve, this is where the road is closed for winter.  It was crystal clear out and we got some great views.  There were quite a few mule deer and lots of turkeys out in the nice weather.  

Back in town we did a little more exploring, Estes Park is stunning.  We stopped at Lumpy Ridge and tried their beers, we probably wouldn’t go back.  Avant Garde Brewery is definitely worth a stop though.  Good beer, good seltzer and friendly staff.  We got back to the rig a little before 5.  There were 8 elk behind our rig, some of them eating and others just laying around.  I got some good photos and then took Duncan for a few mile walk around the park.  

While walking around the park, I observed some other campers trying to get really close to the elk.  The wife was in short shorts and tall rubber boots.   She walked across the river which went over her boots and she was throwing loose corn and corn cobs at the elk.  The husband was holding their dog and trying to get the right photos.  A Darwin Award was not presented to her even though it could have gone sideways, some of the elk still have antlers.  I was able to document the incident with a few pics myself.  

We did a bit of meal prep after the show and watched Dumb and Dumber for further entertainment.  We had some foreign tourists pull in next to us after dark in a Cruise America class c.  I heard some commotion around 11:30 pm and looked out the window to find them dumping tanks (luckily it was gray water) on the ground as their sewer hose was about 2’ short where they parked.  Usually I don’t walk into conflict, but I turned our outside light on and went out to talk to them.  I kept it civil and explained that what they were doing was not acceptable.  They said a few things to each other that I couldn’t understand and then stopped it.