Day 5: Estes Park & Rocky Mountain National Park

We did a lot of driving today... and I mean A LOT!! We started out from our hotel at around 7:30 a.m. (just outside of Boulder) and we got to Estes Park about an hour and a half later. We got out and walked around the quaint little town, got some coffee and did a little shopping.

A view from beautiful Estes Park...



Here are the kids enjoying their smoothies while Mike and I drank our (much needed) coffee...

Alex & I enjoying our morning drinks...

Who knows, this may become our Christmas photo... Ariana kicking Alex and all...

We proceeded past Estes Park into Rocky Mountain National Park on the Trail Ridge Road. I'm not gonna lie- I was kinda scared. Okay I was REALLY scared. Especially when we reached the very top and it started to thunderstorm - thunder, lightening, downpour and HAIL! I was glad I was driving (ssshhh, don't tell Mike!) -but I was a little terrified. Those roads are unbelievable. I seriously had nightmares later that night of falling off the edge!

These pictures are pre-storm... though it started raining right after we took these pics...

Yes, it's all fun and games until it starts to storm at 11,000 feet in the air...

So, after it stopped storming, and we gradually started to descend, we met a herd of Elk right along the side of the road- they were unbelievably close- and we were so fortunate, there was a pull over right there, so we were able to stop and watch for a while...

Somewhere a long the way we crossed the Continental Divide...

This was one of the most beautiful scenes we came across - if you look closely, you can see the lake way down below towards the right...

The drive through Rocky Mountain National Park was amazing. It ended up taking us nearly 5 hours to get down to Vail... I had no idea it was going to take that long! But, fortunately, Ariana and Alex napped for at least a part of that time. And the first thing we did when we got to Vail was hit the pool to get some energy out!! Next up... Day 6: Vail!