Colorado Adventure 7 - Heading Home to Detroit

Day 7 - Saturday: Heading Home to Detroit

Thank you, all, who followed our Colorado adventures last week! It was an amazing experience, and we are grateful we had the ability to go

DIA has a subway!

Signal ready to head home again

This frog gets around!

Signal and his two companions had quite the Colorado adventure! 2,240 miles in the air, 1,239 miles in the car, averaging over 10,000 steps a day, and earning 4 new state souvenirs!

Signal's Colorado Adventure

Colorado Adventure 6 - Cheyenne and Denver

 Day 6 - Friday: Cheyenne and Denver.

After five very full days of sunshine and fresh air, we decided we needed a road trip day. So we packed our bags in Estes Park and left the bugling elk (who bugled all night long) behind for Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Estes Park

Heading out of town we stopped at The Ark, just a few hundred feet from our hotel. What a kooky place!

The Ark GC6AVHF

And, as TaGeez was signing the log, guess who ambled out of the nearby bushes, announcing himself?!? Wow, are they loud! They sound like pressure steam coming out of a hot water heater.

We took the scary, circuitous road out of Estes Park and then headed north to Wyoming.

This is our fourth state on this trip and, again, the landscape was so different! Golden plains stretching out for miles on either side of the highway! We passed bison and prairie dogs! And, yet, you could still see the Rockies purple against the horizon to the west.

Why take pictures of actual bison if you can just
snap a picture of the sign, right? 

Wyoming

I would say, in the over 3 dozen states I've crossed, that few Visitor Centers have impressed me as much as Wyoming's. Modern amenities, great history displays, picnic areas built to mimic local Indian structures.

Signal spending time with Butch Cassidy

And, yes, they had geocaches and adventure labs. We spent quite a bit of time here.

Our other major motivator for heading north was the Cheyenne webcam. Can you believe it? It stopped working the day we landed! And it still wasn't working almost a week later. We went into the weather bureau, but they said they can only report the issue. (Update: It took almost 3 weeks but it's back online).

We don't like claiming webcams that aren't working, but when are we going to be back this way?

Cheyenne Webcam Virtual GC51D4

Next up was a tour of the capital and surrounding historical sites. The whole area had such a community feel to it. I won't post picture here - the Virtuals weren't very exciting, but I don't want to give spoilers away.

Deadwood Stage Start GCEAF6

Is that the capital? YES!

As we turned towards Denver, we spied a First-To-Find opportunity in a nearby Wyoming Park. Looked simple enough, right? Very tall grass concealing cacti and barbed wire. What could go wrong? But we got it!

Clear Creek GCAE6W8 - FTF!

Now is time to head towards our final hotel for the trip in Northglenn plus a little sightseeing in Denver.

Welcome (again) to Colorado!

Prairie dogs just off the freeway!

We wrapped our day visiting touristy spots in the capital of Colorado. I have a personal challenge where I like to grab at least one geocache in every state capital we visit. I should make a challenge of it.

Admittedly we didn't linger downtown because there were so many homeless encampments, but sunset on the steps of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science perfectly wrapped our trip!

The Denver Mint Virtual GC7B7VK

Another capital building

Now, funny thing is we decided to drive over to one more Virtual before turning in for the night. Little did we know that it was at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. I've been carrying around this screenshot from the Denver Travel Guide for months and we wre heading there at sunset!

Isn't it a picture? Ferril Lake in front of downtown Denver in front of the Rocky Mountains at sunset!

The sun was very bright, and we didn't want to photograph right into the sun with our new phones so we moseyed out front to get the Benchmark virtual.

Denver Benchmark Virtual GC52E2

And this is what we saw when we came back. Gorgeous!

City of Denver & Rockies reflected in back of building

We headed back to our hotel in Northglenn and started looking for a place to eat. We randomly picked this Mexican restaurant and are still talking about this meal! Later, a local who is also a coworker, said we happened upon her favorite restaurant in Colorado! So wish they opened a location back home.

Fired up by my amazing fajitas and sopapillas, we decided we had just enough energy to detour to this war memorial virtual nearby before tucking in for the night!

Northglenn Veterans Memorial Virtual GCHHJY

So sad that this amazing adventure is almost over as tomorrow we leave.

Colorado Adventure 5 - Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park

Day 5 - Thursday: Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park

Let me state outright that I’m terrified of heights. TERRIFIED! So, of course, we go to one of the highest National Parks in the country. I believe we calculated I made it up to 9,475 feet on Thursday!

How can you go to Colorado and not visit one of the National Parks?

We planned this visit to Rocky Mountain National Park for later in our trip so we could be acclimated to the altitude to avoid altitude sickness. Unfortunately, by the time we decided to go, it was too late to get timed passes for the RMNP Bear Lake Corridor, the lower altitude portion of the park.

Our choices were to either getup at 4 AM, drive in a strange area in the dark (hoping not to hit moose or elk) and navigate mountain roads to arrive at the entry booth before time entry begins... or wait until after 4pm when tickets were available. Lucky us! Pulling out of Boulder Wednesday night we were contemplating both options when we scored newly released tickets during the 5 PM lottery on the app - 10 AM entry! Woot!

The drive in

They aren't kidding about the timed entry. You need a park entry pass plus your timed entry pass. We were warned not to arrive early (we watched them turning visitors away) so we headed to the Visitor's Center. After perusing the center and buying souvenir's (plus, of course, a little geocaching), we got in line and arrived at the park entrance minutes after 10 AM!

So sad... ROMO: We Are Rangers Multi GC5MGZF

Heading into the park

Moraine Park

I saw a new life bird! A cheeky bluebird called the Steller’s Jay. He was hopping around the trash dumpster. We came across a family of them later after our hike, too!

New bird! Steller's Jay

The parking lots were full so we headed to the Park 'n Ride - free service, good for the environment, saves wear on our breaks. They dropped us right at Sprague Lake- our target for the day!

Sprague Lake is stunning! No wonder it's so popular! There trails and boardwalks completely bordering the lake so you can completely walk around it, and it was so beautiful from every angle! we spent HOURS here!

And I kept my promise to myself. This trip was to relax, to reflect, to live in the moment. I sat on every bench around that lake!

A girl and her frog

Hard to let life get you down when you experience such beauty in this world. Blessed. Totally blessed.

With peace in our hearts we headed back to the bus stop, where we watched the Steller's Jays frolicking (yes, frolicking!) amongst the pine trees!

Steller's Jay

Feeling daring, we boarded the bus to Bear Lake. Daring, that is, until we realized that Bear Lake wasn't "down the road" from Sprague Lake. Nope. This bus went up! Up! Up! That was the 9,475 feet I mentioned earlier. We didn't stay up there for long!

Sub-Alpine Lake is up above the tree tops!

After another visit to the Visitor's Center (Look! Magpies!), we had a bite to eat outside the park and then shopped & cached in downtown Estes Park.

Black-billed Magpie at Visitor's Center

Locked Up or Buckle Up? GC9GEP0

We also spent the day photographing elk on the main road, in the park, in our motel parking lot, and down by the lake on the golf course. Their bugling was charming… for the first hour, but I didn’t sleep Thursday into Friday for all the ruckus they made!

What two things will keep you awake in Estes Park? The bugling Elk during mating season and The Stanley Hotel, the inspiration for the Shining! Yes, there's a cache there, too!

Overlook Cache GCJVET

Exhausted but satisfied, so ended a very special day in Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park.