Today’s agenda was Rocky Mountain National Park, just 10 minutes away from our vacation cabin.  I was expecting today to be pretty simple from a logistical perspective, but as it turns out it is much more complicated than you’d think. There’s now a timed entry reservation system (thanks to our friend Michelle for tipping me off to this, as otherwise we would have shown up that morning and gotten turned away.)  You have to reserve a two-hour window to enter the park, and if you want to go to the Bear Lake area, there’s a different kind of reservation that’s even harder to get.  Some tickets are released well in advance, and others are released the evening prior.

Our initial ticket times weren’t great, so at 6:59 the night before I was poised on my phone, as though I was trying to get Taylor Swift tickets.  You can’t make more than one reservation for a given day with the same account, and I didn’t want to cancel any existing reservation until the new one was secured. By the end I had created accounts for four different members of our family, and we had tickets to enter the main park at 9am and the Bear Lake area at noon.

On the plus side, the reservation system meant that the park was less crowded than any park we’ve visited in the summer.  We cruised right in and almost immediately saw people looking with binoculars at Sheep Lake, where there was supposedly a moose in the underbrush.  We did not actually see the moose, but a nice ranger showed us some moose antlers (heavy!) and offered the girls Junior Ranger badge workbooks.  (These were extremely popular when we were on our cross country trip in 2012, but not exactly what our 22-, 20-, and 16-year olds were looking for.)

We’d decided to head for the Alpine Visitor Center, way above tree line.  We had quite a debate about which route to take.  The first option was a 9-mile, 15mph one-way dirt road.  It was described by many as more beautiful but terrifying, with tight switchbacks and no guardrails.  The main road, Trail Ridge Road, was 20 miles long and is one of the highest paved roads in the US.  We’ve driven this before — and found its switchbacks and lack of guardrails terrifying enough.  Imagining a road that was MORE narrow, with MORE switchbacks and drop-offs, gaining elevation twice as fast, was enough to put us off that option.  (Nadia, who suffers from both fear of heights and car sickness — and as such was already in for a pretty challenging day — was the strongest vote.)  So back to Trail Ridge Road we went (with me driving this time, since Bob still has traumatic memories of last time).

There were lots of beautiful spots to stop at along the way.  Every overlook seemed more gorgeous than the one before — and more tiring, with the amount of oxygen in the air dropping with each mile.  Luckily we’d had two days to adjust in mile-high Denver, then another couple of days in 7500 foot Estes Park.  Even so, by the time we got to the Alpine Visitor Center at close to 12,000 feet, we were all suffering in one way or another.  Most of us still managed to climb an additional .6 miles on the Alpine Ridge Trail, for broad views of the tundra and distant glaciers.  We rewarded ourselves afterwards with lunch at the nearby cafe (which we had discovered is the only place to buy food within the park).  The food was mediocre but the views were fabulous.

The first lake

This all took quite some time, especially after there was some additional excitement with a temporarily lost wallet, so we found ourselves rushing to get back down the mountain in time to reach Bear Lake within the noon-2:00 window allowed by our reservation.  The top part of the drive down was the most white-knuckle part of the trip, and I was very glad to get back to lower ground.

Bear Lake was a completely different ecosystem, with lush forests, roaring brooks, and high peaks in the distance.  Once we started the trail recommended by our friend Michelle (the Emerald Lake trail), we could instantly see why this is the most popular area of the park.  The trail goes to three alpine lakes.  The first was a small, verdant pool tucked into the woods.  (Lanie, tired from the altitude, elected to stay here and read her book rather than continuing on.)  The second one was much larger, greenish, and opened up to spectacular views of dramatic mountains .  Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see the third one, as we decided we should be getting back to Lanie and Nadia (who, still not feeling well from all the windy roads, had elected to stay at the visitor center).  This was one of my favorite trails that I’d ever hiked so I was sad to miss the end, but this was tempered by the fact that it started to rain just as we arrived back — so it was probably best that we weren’t still out on the trail with miles to go.  (In general we’ve had amazing luck with the weather this week.  It seems like it reliably starts to run just as we complete some outdoor activity and head inside.)

On the way back we stopped at Sheep Lakes again and this time the moose was right out in the middle of the lake!  We got a decent view through Zoe’s binoculars.

We got back to the cabin right around dinner time, and after a short rest the troops decided they were energetic enough to tackle the Estes Park escape room, the Time Emporium.  I made a reservation before we headed out for dinner, but we hit some kind of time warp where it somehow seemed to take about 40 minutes to make the 10 minute drive into town.  This led to us having to bolt down our (delicious) pizza and race the short distance to the room, but we made it just in time.  Perhaps it was oxygen deprivation or hiking exhaustion, but I proved to be totally useless in solving any of the puzzles that the room had to offer.  Fortunately, the rest of the family stepped up and we were able to escape the Lost City of Atlantis in around 45 minutes with minimal assistance.

Bob and I had visions of getting moving early in the mornings to go for walks (or, even more delusionally, runs) but for the most part that hasn’t really happened.  But today we at least managed to get out for a short stroll around our resort complex, along a shallow rushing river.

For today’s main adventure, we headed north a bit to Fort Collins, for a white water rafting trip on the Poudre River.  Unfortunately this outing was mostly unphotographed.  (Or rather, it was unphotographed by us.  We didn’t have our phones with us, for obvious reasons.  The rafting company did have a photographer stationed at various key points along the route, but Bob and I elected not to pay the $75 price tag for their photo package.  Our devotion to our blog followers has some limits.  You’ll have to rely on our powers of description.)

Anyway, it was a pretty fun trip.  We all managed to stay in the boat, despite some touch-and-go moments.  Our guide perceived the girls’ love of adventure and offered to make the trip more “spicy”.  This included running the last rapid while spinning the raft in circles.  Cole the guide said his record was five circles, but we only got to four.  None of the other rafts in our groups did any circles at all, so we considered it a win nevertheless.

The scariest part by far was the bus ride.  On the way there, I was a little concerned by the speed at which the bus driver was taking the very curvy road.  (I kept my rafting helmet on and hoped that would protect me in the event of the bus plunging over the guard rails.)  On the way back, when we were approaching a small traffic circle, the guides on the bus all started chanting “DO THE LOOP!  DO THE LOOP!”  We discovered that this meant doing an extra lap around the traffic circle, at relatively high speed.  At one point the bus went slightly over the curb into the center median.  But we survived to tell the tale.

Next stop: the beautiful and historic Stanley Hotel.  The main claim to fame of this place — and what saved it from bankruptcy — is that it is the inspiration for “The Shining”.  Stephen King stayed here one winter night in the seventies, and much of the plot of the book was based on his experiences here.  Many people (including, previously, us) also believe that the movie was filmed here.  Actually, that was not the case — but Stephen King hated the original movie version, and later shot his own miniseries here at the hotel.  (Apparently “Dumb and Dumber” was also shot here, and Jim Carrey had some kind of supernatural experience on his first night here that led to him decamping to the Holiday Inn in town.)

In any case, the hotel has fully embraced this history, and offers Shining-themed tours several times a day.  We heard lots of interesting stories about the history of the hotel, various haunted tales, and stories about Stephen King’s visit and subsequent filming.  Apparently the hotel also got tired of dealing with disappointed guests — and realized which side their bread was buttered on — so they recreated several features from the movie, even though they weren’t in the book.  This included a hedge maze and several exquisitely-reproduced rooms from the hotel.  It was an interesting tour, even if you weren’t that familiar with The Shining.  This was good because some of us had read the book and seen the movie long ago, some had only read the book, and some had not done either.

Dinner was in downtown Estes Park at Mama Rose’s, an Italian restaurant that had been recommended to us by a local.  We all greatly enjoyed the big plates of pasta (and for some of us, big glasses of house wine).  The girls managed to save room for a subsequent stop at Dairy Queen before returning to the cabin.

Travel days can be tough for planners and participants alike, but we are fortunate that Colorado has put something cool between today’s point A (Denver) and Point B (Estes Park — gateway to the Rocky Mountain National Park).  That cool thing is Boulder, a place that deserves its own stayover, at least, and perhaps even a good chunk of a week to give it its full due.

We just had today, though, so we set out to do our best with the time we had.

First things first, a planned stopover at Dutch Bros. coffee, a chain that Nadia knows from her visits to Arizona.  She secured a highly caffeinated creation, and we were all suddenly ready for the day.

We moved on and made our way to our first point in Boulder, a park high above the city.  We wandered through a wide inclining grassy field (and past at least two more weddings — or at least wedding photo sessions), and we crawled among the ankles of the famous Flatiron rock formations.  Zoe even started a brief climb up Flatiron 3, which is accessible only via a very vertical route up a tree-less rock face.

It was crowded with Saturday morning adventurers, many who thought it was a great idea to run up the hill and then scale the rockface barely breaking stride.  Several climbers made their way out of our sight line, gaining 100 feet in altitude, in the 10 minutes we watched.  Zoe only made it about 20 feet befored she decided to come back down.  Her sneakers did not make good climbing shoes.

We finished our loop and then hopped on a shuttle bus that connected the park to the downtown area that held our next points of interest.  Down the hill we went and across town, through the impressive Colorado State University campus,

The trolley dropped us on the edge of the city’s bi-weekly farmers’ market. At the center of the tents and stands we found our brunch destination, a tea house donated to Boulder by its sister city, Dushanbe, Tajikistan.  This was another point of interest uncovered by Zoe’s research.

On a Saturday morning in early August, the wait time to get in (they don’t take brunch  reservations) is about 45 minutes.  That gave us time to wander through the farmer’s market.

We saw a very good side of Boulder this morning.  The park and hike offered a connection to nature, with a scenery scale that was off the charts, and free public transportation always gets our attention.  The community’s embrace of the farmer’s market — it was quite crowded and supported a fair-like atmosphere — was also on full display.

And if that didn’t win us over, the brunch at the tea house sealed the deal.  Our orders spanned from Indonesian to Indian to Persian to Mexican, and every one of us walked away full and satisfied.

Boulder is compact enough that we did not even need to walk far to get to the highly popular Pearl Street outdoor mall.  We wandered a little here — it is quite extensive well laid-out.

Our guess is that Denver is trying to recreate this with its 16th Street Mall.  One standout feature on the Pearl Street Mall: the only retail outlet for the Liberty Puzzle Company, whose intricate wooden jigsaw puzzles have given Jen many hours of entertainment.

The last stop in Boulder required us to collect the truck and head to the outskirts of town for another singular retail experience.  All of the Celestial Seasonings Teas in the store are mixed and packed in a plant just outside of town.

They offer a very nice tour and an extensive gift shop that is the only place in the world where you can purchase all 100+ blends they create.  Even cooler, they have a tasting room where you can request a samply of any of their teas.  It was simultaneously very cool and very laid back.

We stayed there tasting right up to the 5 pm closing time, but when they kicked us out we realized that we were already well on the way from Denver to Estes Park.  We pulled into our apartment well before sunset, and if I were to tell you there was an elk waiting for us in the front yard I would obviously be lying.  In truth, there were THREE elk there to greet us.

It might have been a family, and they seemed completely disinterested in us and completely interested in eating the grass — though the biggest elk did walk over to check out the pickup truck.

For dinner, we decided to hit up the Estes Park Brewery — and realized that it looked familiar.  The adults in our family had been here before.  Just like last time, the Olympics were playing on the TV.  Luckily, this time, it being Saturday night rather than Friday afternoon, we were able to watch something other than rhythmic gymnastics.

Having checked a few Denver menu items off on day 1, we still had some highly anticipated experiences set up for day 2.  An early-morning planning session, taking into account the relative locations of each experience, plus the predicted weather, led us to a plan, but the first stop of the day was a site none of us even knew about on day 1.

Jen received a message from our landlord informing us about a pop-up bakery several blocks from our house that was worth visiting.  In fact, even though it did not advertise, it was so popular that it regularly sold out its stock.  So, we rumbled the Tacoma all the way down Steele Street to beat the crowds to the baked goods.  The croissants and pesto sourdough loaf were worth the effort.

Thus fueled, we were able to hit the town for another round of adventure.  The new schedule kept the original plan offering an optional trip the the Red Rocks Park and Amphitheater — yes, that magical place of dreams where John Denver debuted his soon-to-be hit “Rocky Mountain High,” and countless other musical acts have performed in the presence of a lot of people, and a whole bunch of red rocks.

Four of us made the trip, and three of us took the 1.4-mile Trading Post Trail loop (another recommendation from our hosts).  Nadia slept in and Lanie opted to spend her Red Rocks time appreciating the amphitheater — which was pretty deserving of appreciation.  Built in the 30’s as part of a Civilian Conservation Corps. project that took 12 years to complete, the amphitheater is nestled between two huge rock protrusions.  The gracefully curved rows of bench seats cascade from a concourse down rather steeply to a stage enclosed by structures built from brick the same color as the natural rock.  Its accoustics rival natural Greek amphitheaters (according to a writeup I read on a sign in the gift shop), and it has hosted events ranging from rock concerts, to graduations, to Easter Sunday sunrise services.

While Lanie appreciated all this, the remaing three of us wound around and through the natural rocks with one eye on the scenery and another on the local bird population.  Jen’s pre-trip preparation included printing out a checklist of Birds of Colorado.  On this hike, we were able to check off the Lazuli Bunting, Black Beaked Magpie, and several types of swallow.

From the observation deck. Unfortunately the person we asked to photograph us managed to not include the Denver skyline.

Because of our speedy hiking skills, and because Red Rocks is only 25 minutes from our place in Denver, we were able to collect Nadia and move on with the plan for the day before much of the morning has passed.   The plan had us visiting the science and nature museum first, then making our way across the large city park to the botanical gardens that were on the other side.  All this was in manageable walking distance from our home base.

That’s what our plan said.  Reality said something a little different.  The first disconnect here was that the Science and Nature Museum held our attention much longer than anyone expected.  We could have stayed here for the whole day.  The special exhibit on poisons was very densely packed with information and incredibly interesting.  (Nadia likes to keep us guessing.  Normally she’s the first one done at any museum, impatiently waiting to move on while Zoe reads every word on every sign.  This time around, the rest of us were all done with the whole museum and waiting in the atrium before she even got through the Poison exhibit.  As a neuroscience major/chemistry minor who hopes to go into research, she had a professional interest in all of it.)

We also got pulled into exhibits on space exploration and archaeology.  The natural history dioramas were extensive and brightly rendered.  We made it up to the fourth floor terrace for a great view of the park with the city’s skyscrapers in the distance. (Beyond them, we knew, were the Rocky Mountains, but the day’s cloud cover kept them from our view.)

The second hitch in the plan was geographic in nature.  The Botanical Gardens were located on the edge of a completely different park.  Thankfully, we realized this before we started searching the park to find it.  Jen and I left the girls immersed in the Science and Nature Museum while we walked back to HQ to collect the pickup.  Then we got the girls for a quick jaunt a few parks over to the Botanical Gardens.

Close followers of our travel will know that science museums and botanical gardens are mainstays of our adventures.  It’s rare that we go for both of these family favorites in one day, but Denver was obliging.  Even though they weren’t in the same park, the musem and gardens here are on the same side of town, admid grids of appealing residential neighborhoods.   We’ve even been able to find suitable parking when we need it, which doesn’t always seem likely given the girth of our pick up truck.

The botanical gardens were buzzing with activity, too.  Lots of cars in the parking lot, lots of people milling around.  Maybe 40 percent of them were on hand to witness a matrimonial ceremony.  We managed to spy two brides walking around, but there were enough tuxedos, matching dresses, high heels and sport coats in the crowd to accommodate at least a few more.  It clearly is a wonderful place to get married — there is practically no possible camera angle that would not have flowers in the background.

We saw a fancy herb garden and an elegant and extensive Japanese garden.  A specialy here seems to be water lillies.  We saw several pools filled with different examples, almost all of them in bloom.

It was all very nice, but to some minds on our tour it was all only the build-up to day 2’s most exciting feature.  We grabbed a quick dinner at a microbrewery located in the center of an eerily deserted college campus that was only blocks from the city center.  Then we ambled over to the outskirts of town for … well none of us were exactly sure what we headed for this evening.

Ever since she started research  activities for this trip, Zoe has been a strong advocate for “The Convergence Zone,” an entertainment venue that offered lots of lore, but very little definitive information about what it entailed.  From what we could gather, it was somewhat similar to the St. Louis City Museum, perhaps the best-loved experience from our whole cross-country trip.  Like that instiution, the Convergence Station seemed to be at least half-way designed as an art installation.  The other half sounded like we would be able to explore, like we had in St. Louis, and maybe solve a mystery?

It required us to reserve a time for entry — and after getting into the main concourse were were meant to take a shuttle to a world called C Street (the shuttle reminded us of an elevator), and then when we got out of the shuttle we were meant to “boop” a smart card against any swirling light logo we saw.  This we did, and Zoe particularly loved it.  She would have stayed all night, booping and bopping all around among the colorul lights, otherworldly structures, and winding passageways through four distinct worlds and three floors of access.

Zoe was about 30 minutes from solving the whole puzzle when the momentum from the rest of the group gave out, and we pulled her back down to the main concourse.  (Unfortunately Lanie tends to get headaches from too much light and sound, both of which this place had in abundance.  We knew it it was time to go when we found her curled up inside the darkness of a hollow tree.)  We had been in the Convergence Station for about three hours by then.  I’m sure if Zoe ever gets back to Denver, a return visit will be the first thing on her agenda.

Vacation scheduling gets a lot more complicated once the kids are old enough for college and job and driving themselves around.  Between Zoe’s job at the Nature Conservancy, Nadia’s pre-season training, and Lanie’s summer architecture program, I was able to eke out exactly one six-day window for a family vacation.  So we consulted the Internet to see where we could fly within that window that was (a) not too long, (b) nonstop, and (c) cheap.  Of the available options, Denver won the family vote.

Everything went smoothly on our sunset flight, apart from the tragedy of being unable to pair bluetooth headphones with the seatback televisions (get it together, JetBlue!)  We had a minor snag at the rental car company, where instead of the sedan we’d reserved we were given a choice between a tiny Kia and a pickup truck.  We are not really pickup truck people, but here we are — driving down the narrow city streets at midnight, holding our breath as we edged between parked cars and oncoming traffic, hoping that it wouldn’t start to rain and that the suitcases wouldn’t get bounced out of the truck bed.

We were here briefly once before, as part of our cross country trip.  The kids still fondly remember the waffle restaurant and the children’s museum.  Unfortunately this time we don’t have cousin Danny to take us around, so we had to plan our trip on our own.  I asked everyone for a short list of must-see attractions.

We started with one of Lanie’s picks — the Denver Art Museum.  We’re not always art museum people either — but we really liked this one.  The building itself was amazing and the exhibits were interesting and varied. It was definitely low on the Museum Life-Suck effect that we can find ourselves vulnerable.  Our favorite part was the Biophilia exhibit, featuring art and architecture inspired by nature.  We also took a quick detour across the park to the state house to stand on the Mile High Step — exactly one mile above sea level.

Next up was Nadia’s pick — the Denver Aquarium, walking distance away along a pleasant route through downtown and along a riverside bike path.  (Not everyone in the party considered this 45-minute stroll to count as “walking distance”.)

Nadia had read good things about the aquarium restaurant, where you can eat surrounded by fish, and a substantial lunch there restored morale.  (Sadly you were not able to point to a fish in one of the tanks and ask them to cook it for you.)

Never too old for the stingray touch tank

After the aquarium, our plan had been to stroll around the nearby 16 Street Mall, an outdoor pedestrian district of shops and restaurants that had come highly recommended.  Unfortunately, the whole thing was under construction and the shops were mostly non-existent or closed, so this one was kind of a bust.

Morale flagging once again, we decided to stop at the Rock Bottom Brewery for drinks and snacks.  This was a fortuitous decision, even though we didn’t like the beer much, because slightly after we arrived the skies opened.  We were very glad we weren’t still outside on the 16th Street Mall, navigating closed sidewalks and picking our way around construction debris.

To cap off the day, we had scheduled a family favorite activity — the nearby Escapology escape room.  Zoe had insisted that we were capable of the expert-level Mansion Murder, but we were a bit daunted when we saw the 27% success rate.  Nevertheless, the difficulty scale seemed a bit easier than we were used to from home, and we managed to solve the mystery and escape the room in about 45 minutes.

And the room had an attached cool steampunk-themed bar and restaurant with board games, so we were able to finish the day with dinner and Trivial Pursuit before heading back to our VRBO apartment.