Day 7

This morning began hoping that we could pick up two of the things we've missed: a coffee shop, and the Donut Haus.  As it turns out, Coffee on the Rocks is the most picturesque coffee shop I've ever seen.  It sits nestled at the foot of a mountain surrounded by both a calm pond and a rushing river.  There is a stone patio

surrounding the shop, and there is a small indoor seating area with a beautiful chess set inside.  That place made me wish I lived here even more...Fate smiled upon us today, and the Donut Haus was actually open.  If this is any indication of how our day will go (the coffee and donuts are both divine) then we're in for a spectacular day.

According to Jacob, the world's worst insult is: "you're a hock, sir, and your mother goes to college."  These are the things and words we invent while we're riding in the van. Also, it's not every day that your little brother quotes Huey Lewis and the News.  I'm proud of him.  And it isn't every day that you see a "watch for ice" sign in June.

We took the highest paved road in the US towards Grand Lake, CO.  The view here is absolutely incredible.  There is at least 3-5 feet of snow nearly everywhere (Jacob had to make sure it was really that deep), and it actually started snowing on us around 12:30.  A marmot walked right up to us while we were on an overlook, and generally, on either side of the road, there was a minimum of 6 ft in snow drift, with some places getting upwards 12 ft.

We made it about to the halfway point, but decided to head back to the cabin.  Altitude sickness got the better of some of us.  It actually turned out really well for Jacob and me, as we got the chance to explore the area around the cabin, particularly one out-croppping of rock on the top of the mountain that is in plain sight of our living room.  So we packed some water, a camera, and my ENO hammock in Jacob's backpack, and set off.  We took TONS of pictures, and ended up hiking all the way up the mountain, and over to the other side to the park we visited yesterday.  We found a perfect spot for the ENO on the very top of the mountain, and both enjoyed it before heading down.  Once we got back down to the park, we waited on Dad to come pick us up.  A brief rain-storm went over while we were tossing rocks in the stream, but we would have been fine had Dad not been able to come - a nice man offered us a ride back into Estes Park.  ;)

As our vacation comes to a close, I'm extremely sad to leave Estes Park, CO.  I have found a home away from home, with the mountains towering all around me, keeping me safe.  If I don't ever get to live here, I at least hope I get plenty of chances to come back.  The majesty and splendor of God's creation has rarely been so evident to me as it has the past few days.  Praying for safe travels back to TN (and maybe a chance at the City Museum in St. Louis, MO).

Day 6

We are having a super fantastic time at the cabin.  The drinking utensils are ginormous, but not so ginormous as Jacob originally thought.  As it turns out, he had a glass of mountain dew out of a flower vase.  That provided a good laugh.

Today, we are going ATVing!  I'm super excited, as our family hasn't done anything like that ever.  (A quick aside, the Pole Position high score has gone back to me.  Not sure how long this will last; the competition is getting tight.  Addendum: Jacob has reclaimed it as of right now.  We shall see what happens in the next few hours.)

We did a short hike to Moraine Park where we enjoyed the enormous rapids and a good view of the mountains, and while we were there, a nice man offered to take our picture.  Turns out, his family is from Seymour, TN: he was wearing a fire-station volunteer sweater.  It's a small world.

Well...we drove out to go ATVing and as it turns out, the person who rented the ATV before us crashed it into a tree, so we didn't get to take out out.  So, instead, we decided to go to the Donut Haus, a super

famous donut shop.  As it turns out, they had already closed.  Just isn't our day, apparently.  As you can see, Jacob isn't very happy about all of it.




Despite the momentary set-backs, we had a good rest of the day.  From the ATV rental place, we found a beautifully picturesque Catholic chapel built on a huge rock at the base of the mountain.  It was difficult to tell where rock ended and church began, and the view was fantastic.







From there we headed back towards our cabin and decided to hit up the Rocky Mountain National Park and just explore.  What we saw there ranks in the top 5 most beautiful landscapes I've ever seen, up there with the Grand Canyon and the Canadian Wilderness.  The area we spent the most time in was a valley completely surrounded by huge snow-covered mountains.  Through the valley snaked a deep-blue stream that looked as if it hadn't been there long: the bed of it was just bent-over grass, and there was no river bank.  I have a bit of trouble writing about it because I can't find the words to describe what I saw there.

Jacob and I have been aching to climb some good rocks ever since we found out that essentially everything is restricted at Garden of the Gods, so we found a small path leading up to a huge outcropping of rock, and climbed all the way to the top.  The view from up there was incredible, and we satisfied ourselves, for the time being, with such huge rocks.  ;)




After exploring a good bit of that area of the park, we all headed back to downtown Estes where we did a bit of souvenir shopping.  All the kids bought a hoodie (Jen opted for a tshirt), and we tried out some super-
killer hot sauce in an espresso shop (weird combo, I think), and I found this pretty neat picture that I know a lot of people will appreciate: the Lord blessing mankind with coffee.



We've seen probably 50ish elk since we've been here, and tonight hasn't been an exception.  We saw a ton on the way home again, and got a few more fantastic pictures.  Tomorrow we're planning on going to a gorgeous lake that everyone has recommended, as well as visiting Coffee on the Rocks (a superb coffee shop), and maybe we'll get to that donut shop.  We shall see.

Goodnight from Estes Park, CO!

Day 5

Welp, today we began our trip by packing up (Jacob and I vied for the top score on Pole Position for a while, as we were packed in 10 minutes...he finally beat mine), and heading to tour Focus on the Family.  It's pretty neat here (like an aspen tree).  We visited Whit's office, I took a picture in Eugene's face, and we visited Narnia for a few minutes.  Conveniently enough, we have enough kids to fill the four thrones.  Jennifer rode a three-story tall slide, and Jessica found the man of her dreams (that she sadly was forced to leave behind in CO Springs).  We all felt so close and connected as a family (like an aspen tree).

I think today is a dingbatty sort of day.  You can ask mom about her version of the story, but Jessica, Jacob, and I all thought that she told us to sit in the waiting room and wait while she and Dad went into the book store.  So there we sat, until Dad finally came out and asked us why we didn't want to go in.  When we told him, he said mom told him that we didn't want to come in.  We rolled our eyes and browsed around for the Siamese Tiger section (because, according to Dad, the Focus on the Family bookstore has everything.  Like aspen trees).

We made a brief stop by the Air Force Academy, to visit the pristine chapel there.  Their organ and stained glass totally blew my mind.  I kept thinking how amazing it would be to go to school at the base of the Rockies, and to play some Vivaldi along with that organ.

Each spire of the chapel represents the wings of the Air Force.  The reverence was palpable in the upper chapel, but I found it annoyingly ironic that there was a Buddhist, Jewish, and Catholic chapel in the exact same building just below the Protestant (main) chapel.  Hurray for political correctness.

From there we headed to Denver, which I had some qualms about...last time I rode through Denver I ended up on my back on the windshield of our RV.  Rather painful.

In Denver we stopped for lunch at Casa Bonita: a super unique, all you can eat Mexican restaurant (you can see how unique it is there to the right...not every day you see a super-huge, pink restaurant).  They even have a staged gun fight, a pirate sword fight, and a gorilla that runs around mockingly stealing people while you eat.  The place is enormous and doesn't seem to end, and there's a waterfall that the staff dive off of into a fourteen foot deep pool.  We found a pirate cave that winds narrowly through the edge of the restaurant, and I managed to scare Jessica three times, the first two times being within thirty seconds of each other.

I couldn't help but think that Dr Page would be proud of my "cultural experience."

The drive to Estes National Park was absolutely stunning.  The river runs wildly through the valley for most

of the way, and mountains tower around us.  Jennifer is hoping our cabin will be "nice and wildery" like the terrain around us.  I kinda do too.  ;). We saw our first elk on the way in today, and mom finally saw a prairie dog.  Or so she thinks.  It could have been a figment of her imagination.

After driving around Estes Park to pick up some groceries, we have decided that elk here are nearly as common as squirrels back home (before Jacob started shooting them).  They are EVERYWHERE.  Jacob and I went out on the deck of our cabin tonight just to spend some bro-time stargazing, and I do think that the sky here is the closest I've gotten to the beauty of the Canadian wilderness.  Stars are everywhere here.

 Tonight, I will be lulled to sleep by the distant roar of the swelled river that is a two-minute walk from our cabin.  It's surreal being out here.  I feel the rugged land coursing through me in an odd way.  I feel more alive and at home here, much like I did in Canada.  I can't wait to explore.