Beautiful sunrise this morning.
A little morning math.
The girls are starting their Christmas song practice. Not a bad backdrop…
We drove up the pass as far as we could. They close the Trail Ridge Road going up and over the pass in early October until May so unfortunately we could not drive over the continental divide.
Continental Divide: Separates the watersheds of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. As rain/snow falls it either goes West and flows into the Colorado River ending up into the Pacific Ocean. If it flows to the east in Colorado it primarily feeds into the Platte River, which then flows into the Missouri, to the Mississippi, to the Gulf, which empties into the Atlantic Ocean.
The big plus of being here in the fall/winter with the roads closed…you can bring your dog on the roads in national parks and we can go bike riding on all the closed roads.
We decided to ride up the Old Falls River Road to Chasm Falls and didn’t quite realize the elevation gain we got ourselves into. The girls were not quite happy in the moment, but Daisy, Edwin, and I were quite happy to feel the burn in our legs and lungs. It was a good 5 mile back/forth, but at above 9,500 feet in elevation it sure felt like more.
Daisy fell asleep on Edwin’s helmet about 2.2 seconds after we started driving
We stopped at the visitor center for junior ranger pledges and in town for some ice cream and to return library books.
On our way out of Rocky Mountain National Park we had a great visit with family. Well Mike’s family (brother in law), but they are all so great and sweet that they’re our family too. We got to see Kathy and Tom’s new home in Thornton, which its always nice to see them. Not to mention they had warm brownies and banana muffins waiting for us and many hot cups of coffee. Thank you Tom and Kathy.
Then we went down to Littleton and descended upon the Wolinski’s there. Even with the not best timing of…returning home from hunting about 10 minutes before we got there and remodeling their home, we felt warm and welcomed. We had a great dinner at the Breckenridge Brewery, but an even lovelier time sitting on the only sittable surface in their home, their staircase🤣 It’s always a fun evening with Matt & Theresa and the girls had even more fun playing with Delaney. It was good to see you too Aidan 🙂 Thanjs for having us Matt & Theresa and cant wait to see it all done.
Unfortunately we went to bed feeling slightly stressed tonight because on the drive out of Rocky Mountain National Park in the super turny drive from Estes Park, the whole slide out SLID OUT while we were driving a few inches. Pretty scary and super annoying because are we “stuck” somewhere we don’t want to be again because we have to get something fixed AGAIN?!? Ugh…this is a big deal, and possibly a big fix and I’m not looking forward to it.