Rocky Mountain National Park- A Treasure

Since Jim and I have NEVER been on the Trail Ridge Road before, have always wanted to see it, and the timing was perfect to go, we took an adventure across Colorado.  The plan was to
1. Drive to Fairplay- then take the Breckenridge exit
2. Drive from Breckenridge to I- 70 to at the Empire exit
3 Drive from Empire to Winter Park
3 Check out Granby and Grand Lake
4 Drive over Trail Ridge Road to Estes Park
5 Take Hwy 7 out of Estes Park and drive to Nederland
6 Head on home

So we took off to Fairplay- ate a a cute little restaurant in town and I noticed South Park Plein air flags on the light poles- advertising the South Park Plein Air event from September 6-10.  Hmmmm..... deserves some thought. The drive from Fairplay to Breckenridge was quite beautiful hmmm. that South Park Plein Air event is looking better and better... We got to Breckenridge- wow beautiful and busy town.  I became very envious of Amy Evans, my friend who lives in Breckenridge, who if I had been alone would have definitely chased her down.  BUT, I was with my husband and well that just wasn't in the deck of cards.  We hit Grand Lake at about 6pm and was considering spending the night there but something was pressing us on- it was very cloudy and Jim asked "are you sure you want to go over Trail Ridge when it is cloudy?" thought about it and knowing that I was going to be in the Plein Air Rockies event, knew that I would be back in about a month so I figured well, it's not like I will never be here again so lets do it!

 The clouds were starting to clear up by the time we went through the Kawaneeche Valley- quite a bit of snow on the peaks..

This is around the top of Trail Ridge Road - it's not cloudy up here!

As we were heading down into Estes Park, water was flowing everywhere- this is a nice water feature?  Right?

We arrived into Estes at dusk and drove around looking for a dog friendly motel as we had taken our dog, Buck along.. We ended up staying at the Columbine Inn - small, fastidiously clean, and pretty cute- with a very nice owner.

Got up the next morning, ate at the Egg and I, and took off- goodbye Estes- will see you in a month!