We're back from our 7 day vacation in Colorado's beautiful, beautiful and again, most beautiful, Rocky Mountain National Park. We hiked about 17 miles over 6 days, which isn't too shabby for a 3.5 month pregnant gal who hasn't hiked in ages (and missed it terribly), much less one who's used to the sea level of San Antonio, vs. the 9000 to 12,500 foot elevation all the hikes were at.
Photos will be posted as soon as I can dig out from the mounds of dirty laundry we created, as well as the hefty collection of spam in my inbox and junk mail now covering the island in our kitchen.
We had a splendid time, and if it weren't for the little detail that I'll be either delivering or about to deliver our first-born in March/April 2007, I'd soooooo want to return in the winter/spring to go snowshoeing. I've never snoeshoed but very much want to -- to me it combines the best of hiking with the pristine beauty and quietude of winter. Justin's gone snowshoeing twice in Colorado with his brother, and due to work and school committments at the time, I missed out on both trips.
We got to see some hefty snowfall up above treeline on Trail Ridge Road the second day of our visit -- they'd just opened the roadway 10 minutes prior to our arrival, and the snowplow's work was evident. We got to play in the snow a bit on the roadway pull-offs... (we didn't traipse around on the tundra like some... sigh... it takes 100-500 years for tundra vegetation to grow just an inch or two, and that's without being smashed by a boot or shoe.) The park was crowded on weekends since the elk are bugling and the aspen are at peak, and Estes Park had its "Elk Fest" the last two days of our visit, and while I love everything about the park I love the moments before sunrise and late at night, when the bulk of crowds are nowhere to be seen, more. Can't wait to return with our little Sprout sometime, maybe with Justin's brother and his two children -- we could introduce our favorite park to the next generation together.
Glad to be home and in our comfortable bed, near clean restrooms with no lines (very important to a pregnant lady, as I have quickly learned!), and back with our three cats who are a little psycho right now after being left alone for a week... they're spoiled, since they had daily check-ins by family, but are very set in their routines and get manic when anything changes it.
Anyway, I'll post a thread here later with a synopsis and a link to more of our photos.
In the meantime, here's a small gallery of the photos we shared with family while we were on the trip:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/93349443@N00/?saved=1