Let's see if I can get caught up!! It is the evening of the 3rd, and today was actually a pretty chill day. But I will write about today after I write about yesterday.
Yesterday was Rocky Mountain National Park, where we were supposed to do the big lake loop to see Bear, Dream, Nymph, Haiyaha, and Emerald Lake. I did this hike years ago with a girlfriend of mine, and I thought it was just the prettiest hike ever.
We learned a couple of days ago that past Dream lake, there was too much fucking snow pack to get through without microspikes. Which made me so fucking ANGRY.
The drive up was still beautiful, though!!
We were scheduled to do a light hike through the open space at the Flatirons (today), but bad news from the future: we did not. They are awfully pretty, though!
So many of these photos are just things I thought were beautiful in the moment. SO many cell phone photos of things my brain made yummy sounds over.
Eeeeeeee! There they are! It's the Rockies!!!
We stopped at a couple of scenic overlooks so we could scenically overlook everything. This was the first one we stopped at. So scenic!
And in case the front of the info board wasn't informative enough for you, the back has you covered:
Complete with penis. Tee hee!
It really was very scenic.
My dad got into the ussie game with me!!
And here's my dad and Caryn! Derek did not get out of the car. No ussies of us.
I got so excited seeing the Rockies peek through the hills of Roosevelt National Forest!
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We made a stop at the Beaver Meadows Visitor's Center to go pee, to tool around before our entrance pass time, and perhaps to get our national park pass, whicch we weren't able to, we had to get that at the gate. The only photos I took over there where on my real camera, but we saw a momma moose with her little beebee! Derek and I followed, at a very respectable distance, of course, to take photos of momma and baby, but I think Derek may be the only one who got anything of any note.
When we got back on the road, the line to get in to RMNP was pretty long. This beautiful little vista was outside to my right while we were waiting, and it was just so pretty in the moment. My entire time writing these blogs....75% of it has been going through my phone trying to decide which "this is so pretty right now!" photos I should keep to post, and which ones I should get rid of.
There's the line! Except I took this about 10 minutes into our wait, we had been way further back. But there is no real basis for comparsion available, you'll have to just take my word for it and imagine how much longer the line looked.
Another beautiful vista! I had, at this point, sent off at least 10 minutes of videos to both my wifey and my oldest, because it was just so gorgeous out. I sent one video to my work wife later in the evening, but I had wanted to send her all of them, too.
We decided to travel up the mountain to the Bear Lake Trailhead, even though we would not be taking the trail because of the snowpack. This is the view of the mountains that the trail is nestled through, and it is so beautiful:
And this is the direct view overheead of the trailhead. Derek was excitedly saying that seeing just the trailhead makes him want to live here to be doing the trails all the time. Which we both agreed, if I get that PhD candidacy, we will for sure be out hiking RMNP fucking constantly. Derek and I tried to do this trail together once, but simikarly to our arrival on this day, there was just too much fucking snow when we came out.
There's my daddy, at the trailhead division! You can see all the snow on the ground, so I suspect in about two weeks, the trail will be fine to go on without microspikes (that was the thing...the trail COULD have been done, but you needed microspikes past Dream, and my dad was not interested in buying/renting a pair, and Derek and I didn't bring ours because we both didn't think we would need them, and we forgot).
So I haven't seen Flattop Mountain, Fern Lake, or Bierstadt Lake, but I've seen everything else on the signs!
More snow!
HEre's Daddy Tucci, lookin' through binoculars to check out the sights!
And then we made our way out. We had a reservation for The Stanley Hotel Tour at 4pm. My dad is a huge Stephen King fan, and he really wanted to see "The Overlook Hotel", so I booked him a tour several months ago as a birthday present (his birthday is next month).
The beautiful view on our way out:
We arrived at The Stanley a little bit late, but they brought us in to the where the tour currently was and caught us up on the way. My dad and Caryn, sitting nicely for the tour guide:
The view from the veranda, through the window:
The photo of all of the ghosts at the Overlook from The Shining:
The parking lot:
The hotel'smain entrance, which we learned on the tour...was the fucking GUEST HOUSE
The lobby of the hotel, with my dad and Caryn for scale:
Derek and my dad, listening to the tour guide talk in the room that used to be the hotel bar, telling the tale of Stephen King's fateful stay at The Stanley.
And the famous Stephen King room, room 217. I trieed to book this room for my dad as another birthday present, but not only is it ungodly expensive, it is also booked out. For the next three fucking years.
And when the tour was over, we got back in the car and headed home. You are not allowed to just mill around the hotel, they really make sure you know that it's for GUESTS ONLY, which feels absurd. Those tour tickets were 50 bucks a pop, and they only take you to two places? Come the fuck on.
Derek and started a bulgogi marinade that morning before we left in preparation for a big ass meal when we returned home that night. The meal:
There was bulgogi, rice, kimchi, yu choy, marinated bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, and lettuce for wrapping. Everybody loved the food. I made myself vegan chicken with a greens mix and some riced broccoli, but I barely finished it. I started feeling very dizzy and very off, so I went to bed early. Derek crawled into bed very very late, smelling like booze, so I guess the evening must have gone quite nicely.
Moving on to the next!
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