Thursday, August 2nd

Thursday
We learned something else about our children today: when it rains all day, and everything to do in Estes Park is outside, our children get cranky.

The day began beautiful, and we started up Fall River Road. This road is dirt, one-way, only 9 miles with tons of switchbacks,but rises about 3000 feet to the top of a mountain. That part of the day was pleasant. We had a car behind us that somehow didn’t understand the point of Fall River Road was to go slow, and admire the scenery. Bobby finally pulled over and let them go by. They tore up the mountain like they were a massive hurry. I expected to see them wiped out on a curve, but I’m guessing they made it to the top.

We stopped at another waterfall, and climbed once again to the top. Our girls are climbing machines! While there, we ran into my friend Ethan from the rafting trip and his family. He saw me first, and came over to wave hello with a big smile. I guess he did enjoy sitting by me on the bus and listening to me talk.

The road ends at the Alpine Visitors Center, altitude 11,796 feet. You can walk to a point over 12,000 feet, but by this time we were in a cloud and there was no point, nothing to see. The girls enjoyed touching the clouds, and Macy said it was soft.

The day went downhill from there. It rained, rained and rained. We didn’t have a hotel room to go watch tv, so we just drove around hoping for a break. We did go on two hikes while it was sprinkling; one to a neat waterfall (probably the sixth waterfall we hiked to) and another to a couple lakes.

We roasted smushmallows in the rain. I just hope it is not raining in the morning when we pack up to leave.