Sonya, Clara & Lydia: Road Trip

We took an early flight from Boston's Logan International Airport in Massachusetts to Denver International Airport in Colorado. There, we picked up the rented Chrysler Town and Country and drove for almost 2 hours to get to Estes Park, Colorado which is the nearest town on the east side of the Rocky Mountain National Park. (see map) Along the way, we stopped at Target and loaded our trunk with necessities like icebox, juice, yogurt, drinking water, milk, coffee, snacks, diapers, etc. We spent a recording breaking amount of over $200 there!

Denver International Airport, Colorado - Estes Park, Colorado

Riverside, Estes Park, Colorado

Estes Park is quite a small tourist town. We went to the Estes Park Brewery looking for good beer, as usual. They had free beer tasting at the bar and we liked the rather unusual raspberry beer. Unfortunately, the food was horrendous! I told Justin that I am confident that I can cook better any day, maybe even with my eyes closed! That was to be the worst food we had on the trip :(

Point A to Point B is mostly the Trail Ridge Road which takes us from one end of the Park to the other.

We stayed overnight at Rhodeway Inn at Estes Park and the next morning, we head off to the Rocky Mountain National Park. We stopped at the Fall River Visitor Center to get some advice on the places to visit in the park. The ranger recommended Bear Lake, Sprague Lake and the scenic drive along Trail Ridge Road where there are various lookout points to stop for magnificent views of the landscape. It takes one and half hours to drive the complete length of this road.

Fall River Visitor Center, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Before we came on this trip, we were wondering how to keep Sonya and Clara occupied and interested. She was pretty interested in taking photos using Justin's cellphone and I thought she would be happy to have her own real working camera. We bought the Little Tikes camera for her and soon she was taking photos just like me. She would get us to pose for her. The only slight problem was that she only wanted to be the photographer.

Fall River Visitor Center, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

There was a donation box at the Fall River Visitor Center. The box had a slot for each of the states of America and also other countries. There was no slot for Singapore and the one for Massachusetts was empty so we put a dollar in there :)

We decided to head to Bear Lake and along the way, we stopped at various locations to take photos.

Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

The first wild animal we saw was the chipmunk. We wondered what is the difference between a squirrel and a chipmunk. According to Wikipedia, a chipmunk is just a small squirrel. The chipmunks we saw throughout our trip had two white stripes along their backs.

Chipmunk

Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

I tried taking panoramic shots but didn't get very far :( The photos did not do justice to the actual place. Nothing beats being there physically and experiencing the open fields and the high mountains. It really makes you feel so small.

Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

We reached Bear Lake and decided to take a walk around the perimeters of the lake. Sonya was fine at first until the bugs started flying all around her. She really freaked out and insisted to be carried even after I sprayed the insect repellent on her. That was her first meltdown on the trip.

I had thought that Clara would be more difficult to handle on the trip but she was generally fine except for the stomach flu and fever towards the end of the trip. She just needed my attention and as long as she can hold my hand, she was quite happy :) Sonya, on the other hand, had quite a few major meltdowns over the next 13 days. We were lucky to have a car that had a DVD player installed so we bought a Barney DVD and that kept the kids happy most of the time. The only problem was that they wanted to watch it over and over and over and over... Justin and I were suffering from an overdose of the purple dinosaur. We bought another Dora DVD hoping for some variety but Dora was even a bigger hit. Well, at least we learnt a few Spanish words from Dora.

Bear Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

The temperature at Bear Lake was fine but there was still ice along part of the trail. It was a nice easy trail about 1 mile long by the edge of the lake. The water in the lake was still and the surrounding mountains were just beautiful. On this trip, we saw scenes that we had only seen in postcards, movies, calendars, etc. It all seemed rather unreal initially.

Bear Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Chipmunk

(not sure what kind of bird this is)

Bear Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Can you see the snow by the side of the trail? Sonya did a pretty good job navigating her way round the puddles of melting snow after we turned it into a game for her.

Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Can you see the water rushing over the rocks behind us? This was taken along Bear Lake Road on our way back to Estes Park for lunch.

Bear Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Sonya was not keen on taking photos most of the time but she saw these flowers beside the river and asked for a photo.

Estes Park Tramway, Estes Park, Colorado

On our way to lunch, we saw these cable cars going up the mountain. We found out from the people at the restaurant that it was the Estes Park Aerial Tramway. It costs $9 per adult. I can't remember how much it was for children. There were only two trams (they don't call it cable car) going up and down Prospect Mountain. There was one operator in each tram and they ferry people up and down the mountain.

Estes Park Tramway, Estes Park, Colorado

Aerial View of Estes Park, Colorado

There was an observation deck, a picnic area and a gift shop at the top so you can take your time to soak up the view before heading down again. We went into the gift shop and Sonya said she wanted to "buy something" so we bought a scoop of peanuts :)

Observation Deck, Estes Park Tramway, Estes Park, Colorado

After the tram ride, we took the scenic drive along Trail Ridge Road in the Rocky Mountain NP.

Sonya and Clara soon fell asleep. Justin and I had to take turns to go down the car at the scenic overlooks unless they are right by the side of the road.

There was still quite a bit of snow as we climbed higher up the mountain range. Look at the photo below. We wondered if all that much snow fell this past winter or it was an accumulation from previous years.

Trail Ridge Road, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

From the same photo, you can also see a rectangular device in front of the windscreen in our car. That is the Global Positioning System (GPS) device we bought before we came for the trip. It costs about $159.99. We set it to find the shortest possible way to get from one place to another. When we first tried it around Cambridge, I was quite annoyed by it because I already know the roads pretty well in Cambridge. It was just finding the shortest possible traveling distance but not necessarily taking into consideration things like traffic lights and was also telling us to make unnecessary turns. But, it proved its worth on the trip. There were a few glitches, that I will elaborate later, but Justin said they were due to our settings rather than the device. Without it, we would have been stranded in the middle of nowhere numerous times on the trip and wasted time trying to figure out where we are on the map and which way to go. It was very common to drive for miles and miles and all you see were open fields and mountain ranges with no houses in sight. It gets worse after the sun sets because most roads, except for more densely populated areas, were unlit.

Trail Ridge Road, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

From these photos, you can probably tell that it got rather chilly as we headed higher and higher up the mountains. Estes Park was about 6000 - 7000 feet above sea level. The highest point on the Trail Ridge Road was 12183 feet (3713 km) above sea level. It was cold and the wind was blowing but it was nothing like the time we went to Mount Washington in New Hampshire.

Trail Ridge Road, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Clara woke up.

Sonya was still sleeping.

Trail Ridge Road, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

What can you see from the photo above? Just rocks? Look closer :) They are bighorn sheep!

Bighorn Sheep along Trail Ridge Road, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Trail Ridge Road, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

It was quite scary driving along the Trail Ridge Road because the roads are rather narrow and right at the edge of the mountain. When you are in the car, there are times when you cannot see the edge of the road when you look out your window. All you see is the steep slopes down the mountain.

Trail Ridge Road, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Elks

As we near the end of the trial, we started seeing more wild animals as we were now in the valleys where there are more vegetation as well.

Elks

A lake that has frozen over next to where we spotted the elks along Trail Ridge Road, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Sonya called the frozen lake "frozen water" :)

Trail Ridge Road, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Elks

Then we spotted more elks in the fields.

Elks

One of them had a blue tag around its neck.

Elks

Trail Ridge Road, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

There were plenty of fallen trees everywhere. I thought these ones in the background resembled the horns of the elks :)

Moose

Then, there was a moose!

Moose

Elks

And even more elks among the trees!

Elks

That concluded our visit to the Rocky Mountain National Park. Using our GPS, we headed towards Rapid City, South Dakota. Just outside the park was the Grand Lake and the Shadow Mountain Lake, both of which were very beautiful.

Shadow Mountain Lake, Colorado

Shadow Mountain, Colorado

By the time we left the Rocky Mountain National Park, it was already close to 5pm. If we had followed the route given by Google Maps, we would have reached Rapid City, South Dakota in 8 hours. Instead, we followed the GPS and took an extra an hour and half to reach. This, accordingly to Justin, was because we told it not to make any U-turn. By the time we reached our hotel, it was already 1am. Sonya and Clara fell asleep soon after dinner. They woke when we brought them into the hotel room but soon, they were fast asleep once again.

Route provided by the GPS and the route we took

Route provided by the Google Maps

The big consolation from this mistake was that we got to see this little black bear just beside the road. There were already 2 other cars there when we saw it and the men were trying to lure it with food. I thought it was very foolish and irresponsible of them to try to get it to come out from behind the trees because the cars on those roads were moving very fast and it could have been hit and killed by a car!

Black Bear

That was our first ever encounter with a wild black bear. All the wild animals we saw on this day got us, well at least I did, to look out for more animals in the other national parks.

Sonya, Clara & Lydia

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Road Trip - Rocky Mountain

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