Even though there’s some snow on the ground it’s a beautiful day. It automatically feels good to be back in mountains.

We did our usual first stop at national parks…went to the visitor center, picked up junior ranger packets, and watched the videos.

We then decided to go into town to track down some information about Edwin’s family who used to live in town since it was Friday. We went to the library and were able to get a temporary library card to check out a few books. The girls were beyond excited. We ended up at the Estes Park museum before we headed back into the park for lunch at Bear Lake. The parking lot was full. On a Friday, in November… We had a tasty lunch of fresh baguette, prosciutto, cheese, tomato, cucumber, and avocado, pretty sure my favorite lunch.

We then did the obligatory hike around Bear Lake up to Nymph Lake, Dream Lake, and Emerald Lake. The trail was snowy, but was all packed down because it’s a pretty well used trail. A lot of people were hiking with crampons but we forgot to rent some while we were in town but we ended up being fine. A little slip n sliding, but the fun kind.

Longs Peak in the background. Highest leak in Rocky Mountain National Park at 14,259

The highlight was definitely “skating around” on the already frozen Nymph Lake with just our shoes

We were back at camp by 4:30, enjoyed some rollie pollies by the fire while it was still light and were tucked inside the RV by 6.