A Rocky Mountain High

We got an early start this morning and headed for the Trail Ridge Road through Rocky Mountain National Park. The scenery was amazing! It seemed like every time we went around a corner we wanted to stop and take another picture. It was very hard to limit the pictures I posted today, so you get a fairly large collection to review, starting with this view of entering the park from the east. Two more scenes are below, one of the many mountain ranges and another showing a peaceful valley.

But, having said that, we also saw a lot of wildlife today, including 4  bull elk, not 50 yards away! While we were watching the elk graze, they sat down and posed for pictures.  It was fascinating to see how un-nerved they were with dozens of people fairly close by taking pictures.  Then a deer wandered by, along with a small marmot. Once we moved on, we came around a different corner and saw a doe elk cross the road in front of us, but she hid in the woods before we could get a picture.

As we exited the park we saw another crowd of stopped cars so we stopped and caught a glimpse of a large bull moose.

So it was a very good day for animal spotting.

After lunch we headed to Echo Lake where the highest paved road in the world, leading to the top of Mt. Evans, starts. It was getting late in the afternoon and I'd had enough of mountain driving so we passed on driving to the top and headed for our very plush Residence Inn, courtesy of a Marriott special promotion.  After settling in, Mary treated me to a birthday dinner at Casa Bonita.
Now it's time to pack up and think about heading home tomorrow.