I think my working girls were pleasantly surprised to find that they got Labor Day off and that they got paid for it as well.
Chris made a reservation at Rocky Mountain National Park for noon. We packed snacks and drinks and hoodies and rain jackets and started for Estes Park. Our first stop was at Subway on Highway 66 for lunch sandwiches.
It has always been fun to peruse the shops in downtown Estes Park. We noticed crowds of people gathering at the park and decided to walk over to see what they were looking at. The park was filled with elk just enjoying the sunny afternoon.
Both Chris and Misha were looking for a hat (without success though) and of course, there was fudge. Kristen was looking for maple fudge without walnuts and was unsuccessful there as well.
We drove from Estes to the back entrance of RMNP and found a picnic spot in Endovalley. That was the highlight of our day in the park. When we tried to drive up to Bear Lake for a hike, the park rangers were turning everyone back saying the lot was full. That's even with people coming back down from Bear Lake. They rangers were pretty adamant, so we turned around and drove back to Estes Park.
Amy had requested a chance to revisit a childhood memory. Chris stopped at the slides.
Plan B. We drove toward Allenspark and Wild Basin Trailhead.
We hiked with Amy and Kristen to Cascade Falls. Chris and I had just been there a couple of weeks ago, but at least we were able to get in to this park. It wasn't even too busy. Misha stayed in the car while we hiked.
As we were leaving the park, Misha spotted two moose in the trees alongside the road. We stopped and watched and were amazed at the people getting out of their vehicles to get a closer look. Our view was awesome until a guy drove past and stopped, pretty much blocking our view. He startled the moose enough that the moose took off across the road behind us and that darn guy got the best view of all!
