RoMo: the quirky side

To close out my Rocky Mountain National Park posts, I wanted to tell you about a couple of really neat places to which we were introduced by our host-with-the-most.

Neither are actually in the Park, but they're close enough that a visit there will put you in close proximity, and they are both worth a stop.

The gorgeously-furnished porch above is outside the dining room at the Baldpate Inn, a truly funky place that we stopped by for a snack after our Wild Basin hike.

It's a little hard to know where to start in describing this place, and I strongly suggest you check the link above to see much more of its charms than I was able to get good pictures of. The "History and Key Collection" link is the one to choose. I didn't get a good shot of the amazing ceiling dripping with keys from all over, and for some reason I neglected to snap any of their historical photos (perhaps I was too engrossed in trying to identify all the celebrities that have visited the place over the years).

I did get a clear shot of one wall of the key room, just to give you a taste:

Besides being a really beautifully rustic structure, the history of the place is just fascinating; be sure to read the website's summary. (I have one of those nagging feelings that I read, a long time ago, either the play or the novel for which the Inn is named: Seven Keys to Baldpate. I should look it up on Project Gutenberg and give it a re-read; sounds like an interesting story.)

But what about that snack?

That's my piece of chocolate creme pie, which tasted as heavenly as it looked, and surely over-replaced the calories I had expended on the hike. Henry was busy with his own fruit pie (he doesn't think flavors like chocolate creme are actually real pies, but, hey, that leaves more for me!).

And here's the view from our pie-table:

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Earlier in our visit, our host, who's super-knowledgeable about all things local, took us to Colorado Cherry's Lyons location, in pursuit of some treats for our desserts later on.

This is another charmingly quirky place that offers a a rather dazzling array of cherry- and other-fruit-related products. Here's Henry, agog in one of the store's rooms, not knowing where to look first:

Most of the items you can see here are various juices and ciders, but we also picked up a delicious cherry pie, which of course led to several Twin Peaks jokes over the next couple of days.

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And finally, you might remember that this wasn't our first trip in 2017 to Estes Park. We were here in January for a friend's wedding and stayed at the historically spooky Stanley Hotel. If you want to see some winter-scape photos of this lovely building, I refer you to this earlier post; and here for a selective tour of it's elegant interiors.

Here's the way it looks in June:

I wish we could have looked around it some and been able to compare it to our previous snowy (and icy) encounter, but we just didn't have time. Perhaps on a future visit to this wonderful valley.

Wordless Wednesday: late for your flight?

RoMo: Top of the World

Doesn't that look like you couldn't get any higher?! And we weren't quite to the highest point on Rocky Mountain National Park's Trail Ridge Road, just as far as we could get in the time frame we had for our drive. (Don't the tiny cars in the red boxes make the human intrusions into this stupendous space seem insignificant?)

The pull-out where we ended our drive is Rock Cut, named for the engineering marvel that allows the road to get to the amazing views I'm going to show you (note the waning moon in the red box):

It took 4 years—1929-33—to build the whole road (your tax dollars put to very worthy work—well, not your taxes, most likely, but your parents' or grandparents'). And it's getting a lot of use in 2017.

The road up to Rock Cut is incredibly scenic (and only scary in a few spots)...

still plenty of snow in early June

can you believe the blueness of that sky?!

...it's really easy to take amazing photos just holding your camera out the window, when this is what's out there.

But it's even more fun when you can stop and really take all this magnificence in. Rock Cut pull-out is well-equipped with toilets and a trail for more intimate communion with the Tundra Communities that live up here at 12,000+ feet. Henry hiked the whole trail, but I could only manage a little ways, since the double whammy of thin and chill air wasn't welcomed by my lungs, just recovering from a bad chest cold. Here's a shot of the trail just before I turned back to the parking area:

I had a rather long wait here for Henry to return [alert the media] but I was never bored in the slightest. There was so much to see and photograph and just feel! To get a quick, in-motion, view of what this amazing landscape is like, check out this video I put on YouTube. (It was really windy up there!)

Yes, those are bighorn sheep just over the edge of the parking area, providing all kinds of entertainment for tourists and photographers amateur and professional. Here are some closer shots (the amateur variety) of this handsome group:

just chillin' in the living room by the picture window...

The grownups were content to just sit and watch the scenery and the tourist, but the youngster was up-and-about, a normal hungry teenager...

These guys weren't the only wildlife on offer. Here's either a marmot or a pika, depending upon whether you believe Henry or me. I thought it was too big for a pika, but Henry thought it was too small for a marmot. Any ideas, readers? S/he blends in pretty well with the rocks, so I put a red box around him/her:

Of course the inanimate scenery was just as compelling from this vantage point. Across the way was a tarn, high up the mountainside. I didn't see it at first when I was there, so I put a red box around it to make it easier for you to find:

btw, "tarn" is a great Boggle/Scrabble word

Two more fabulous views:

More wonderful from-the-car-window scenery on the way back down to Estes Park...

We were so lucky to have this opportunity for sight-seeing at the beginning of what was supposed to be a work-only trip. Thanks again to our Estes Park host-with-the-most for lodging, meals, and the car loan that made this top-of-the-world excursion possible.

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Sad P.S. Unfortunately, RoMo hasn't been immune to the pine beetle scourge. (If you want to really get depressed, just search "beetle" at this website and learn that there are now spruce and other beetles on the rise in these wonderful mountains.) We saw several hillsides that seemed to have more dead trees than live ones. Take a look here, at the far mountainside:

The views up here are going to look a lot different when our grandchildren bring their children up here, I'm afraid.

RoMo: a roaring river*

I will eventually show you some of the work we did on our "work trip" to Colorado last week. But I have more fun stuff to talk about first.

The first few days we were scheduled to be "working" we actually had renters at our cabin (an unusual event for summer). This situation led to us getting invited to spend a couple of days with one of Henry's high school buddies who just happens to have a lovely place near Estes Park.

Astute users of Google-maps will notice, if they look up "Estes Park," that Rocky Mountain National Park is right out the back door. In the winter, this isn't really anything to write home about, since most of the Park's roads are closed. But in summer it's a mountain—and rushing-stream—lover's dream. (New nickname learned this trip: "RoMo" is how folks in the know refer to this jewel of the park system.)

Early summer in the Rockies is always a time to see great white water (see this post from our June, 2014 trip to Montana). But we think this year the roaring water was louder than usual due to heavy snow over the winter. And we got to see this great spring rush up close and personal on two RoMo outings with our generous host.

Our first night there we had a late picnic dinner at the Endovalley picnic area, which is graced by a fork of the Fall River. You can see this nice stream above on the right.

But this was just a taste. The next morning we took a wonderful hike along St. Vrain Creek, in the southeast corner of the Park, specifically, the Wild Basin area. What great river views! I took a lot of pictures, but have selected my favorites for this post. *(Yes, technically it's just a creek, but it looked a lot more river-like to me!)

The one at the top is near Copeland Falls, where we saw more than one group of artists sketching the extravagantly photogenic scene...

Along the trail there were glimpses of almost unimaginable quantities of water churning over the rocks, down to the valley...

It's hard to look at these photos and not hear the thunderous sound of rushing water. If you want to hear it as well as see it, check out this video I put on YouTube.

And of course with all the lovely trees and fabulous rocks and boulders...well, it was a great hike.

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However, even more RoMo joys were yet to come. Here's a sneak preview, snapped on the way home from our picnic:

We got a lot closer to those gorgeous mountains the next morning. And I'll show you all about it in the next post.

Wordless Wednesday: Henry prepares to conquer the world

Starting out from a Mile High

We took a quick trip to Colorado last week that was supposed to be mostly for work purposes (arranging for the exterior painting of our cabin in Garfield—which we really couldn't do in January due to the enormous amount of snow hiding most of the walls to be painted!).

But it turned out to offer lots of opportunities for fun along the way as well, which I'll tell you about in upcoming posts.

However, even our first day in the Centennial State was more enjoyable than anticipated.

It started at the glorious Denver International Airport; it's one of our favorites—gigantic but well-laid out and clearly signed, spacious with lots of eating and entertainment options, should you ever be stuck there (as we occasionally have been)—but its main drawback is its location, on land that seems like it's hours from downtown.

But even that minus has been at least somewhat mitigated by the city's light rail extension. You can catch it in the new airport station, down an escalator from the gorgeous new onsite hotel pictured above. Here's another shot of it:

And, since we are old ^{[citation needed]} it doesn't even cost very much to ride in comfort all the way to LoDo and the main station downtown. (We found out later that it was even a better bargain than we first thought—more about that later.)

Incidentally, long-time readers will remember that LoDo is the home of Coors Field, the fabulous Rockies ballpark. Unfortunately a game wasn't on our schedule this trip, but we did get a glimpse of the stadium from the train...

Since we were meeting our adorable grand-nieces down there for a late breakfast, taking the train was a no-brainer...

cute twin great-nieces enjoy the fountain near Union Station

We also had another errand to run in the area: Henry needed new hiking boots. His old ones had been glued together with contact cement a few months earlier but that hadn't proved to be a permanent fix. So how handy that Denver's main REI store is within walking distance (just barely) from the train station.

It did turn out to be a longer walk (with giant suitcase) than anticipated, but it allowed us to see more of LoDo, including this charming mosaic as we walked under an overpass...

The flagship REI where new boots were purchased is a tourist attraction on its own...

...located in a turn-of-the-20th-century building, and including its own climbing wall. There's also some neat gear and gear/vehicles on display, like this nifty trailer...

...plenty for me to look at while Henry boot-shopped.

There are also helpful staff members who can tell you where to get a bus back to Union Station (which we should have thought about taking the other way!). And since our senior train ticket is also good for bus rides all day, it was free!

AND, that's not all that we got out of our $4.50. It also provided us with free bus transportation all the way from Union Station in LoDo to Longmont, where a friend picked us up and hosted us for the first two days of our excursion. More about this exciting and non-work-related side trip next time.

Wordless Wednesday: How can it have been 50 years?!