Estes Park & Rocky Mountain National Park

Estes Park is a popular summer resort and headquarters for the Rocky Mountain National Park.

 

 It is common to see Elk right on the side of the road here, even with everyone around taking pictures he just continued to follow his harem up the mountain.

 

On the outskirts of town is The Stanley Hotel, built in 1909, and is the inspiration for The Overlook Hotel in Stephen King's novel The Shining.

 

 

We made our way out of town and onto Trail Ridge Road, known as the "the nation's highest continuously paved road." Along the way we saw yet another elk with his harem.

We took a detour and crossed our fingers as we traveled up the primarily gravel, one-way uphill and punctuated with switchbacks, 11-mile-long Old Fall River Road. Three miles in we stopped to see one of the many natural wonders Chasm falls...

We continued up the road leading to the alpine tundra and finally reached the Fall River Station at the top...enjoying the view at 11,796 feet above sea level. 

Definitely not a trip we would recommend for those not used to the altitude but worth every moment.

Our new home...

We were so lucky to find such a nice house for rent on such short notice.  Plenty of room for us and all the animals...

Entry and what will soon be our living room...

 Upstairs to our living room, soon to be billiard room, and kitchen/breakfast nook

Up some more stairs to our bedroom, guest room, reptile room, and Zoe's bathroom (where she stays during the day)

Downstairs from the entry way to the half bath, office, and laundry

Outside through the living room/kitchen to our screened in porch

At this point it was obvious that the front and back yard had not been taken care of for a while.  This spring we will be doing a lot to clean it up in preparation for our wedding in August.

Moving Up In Altitude...

We packed up our 34ft U-haul and headed to Longmont, Colorado.  It took us a very stressful 3 days to get there...Dave driving the very heavy beast of a moving truck and I drove our car with all of the mammals and reptiles.  Unloading the truck was no sweat, with the help of my brother Jason and nephew Cody, except for the smell of smoke in the air from the forest fires near Boulder. But in the end all our belongings and animals made the move and now we are enjoying the beautiful blue skies and sunshine.