Rocky Mountain National Park

View near Mills Lake. 

I spent the better part of the last two weeks looking for a car. I obviously spent some nights writing posts. However, I was so stressed out, I am very glad it is over. I went from a small SUV, my Santa Fe that got a decent 22 mpg. I now own a Toyota Corolla that now gets about 32 miles/ gallon. Hopefully, I will enjoy this vehicle for the next ten years as much as I did my Santa Fe.



These two posts about Rocky Mountain National Park will conclude my trip in 2010 to the west. I don't remember if we spent four or five days there. We did a lot of short hikes but nothing crazy. We spent every night in Timber Creek Campground. Interestingly, the singer Jewel and her husband was at the campground and national park a few days before us. The campground is on the west side of the park. We spent a lot of time on the east side of the park so we did a lot of driving. Doing a lot of driving in a park is not like a long commute to work. even doing the same forty mile route everyday is fun. We saw bull elk with giant racks and awesome mountain vistas. Trust me, it never got old.

There is a lot of wildlife in Rocky Mountain, He saw tons of elk and mule deer. We saw a moose, coyote, and a few pikas. The one animal we did not see were bighorn sheep. Of course DJ and I had seen plenty in the Badlands and Yellowstone. However, Laurie had not seen any. I had hoped we could find her some, but no such luck.

There are hundreds of miles of trails, but a couple days is not near enough to see much of it. I think the longest hike we did was about seven miles. One of the hikes we did was to Mills Lake. On the way to the lake we passed a pretty cascade named Alberta Falls.

Alberta Falls

DJ with a Gray Jay on his hand

Laurie with the Jay

Mills Lake

Above Timberline Rocky Mountains