Friday - You look familiar?Having driven from the interstate all the way up through Winter Park yesterday afternoon we were frustrated to find, just a few miles before the turn off to the camp ground, a sign stating that the road ahead was closed for the season. We decided to camp anyway and have a think about what to do in the morning.
Talking to the campground host (while being dive-bombed by humming birds) he suggested we drive up to the point where it was closed anyway, since it was beautiful up there, even if you couldn't get all the way through. So that is what we decided to do.
At the park entrance station we were surprised when the ranger said "oh yeh, it is closed, but give it an hour and they should open it" - now that was good timing.
So we made our way slowly up through the park. We detoured to look around one of the park campgrounds I had considered staying in. It was fairly empty and very open - not as scenic as where we had camped last night, so I now understood why our campground had been so popular.
Sure enough, further up the road we found this:
So we took some pictures, then sat in our camper and brewed up a cup of tea. After half an hour a ranger drove through from the other end and opened the gate to let himself out. One or two people rushed to the gate, wanting to be first through, only to be told by the ranger that it would be at least another half hour due to ice on the road.
Eventually they opened the gate. Many rushed to get through, but we were amongst a small crowd at the back, all hanging back trying to be the last to go, so we could cruise through slowly without worrying about traffic on our tail.
If you haven't done it the drive up there is spectacular. Especially with the snow still lying around:
I even saw a marmot, but was too slow to get a photo.
We stopped at Estes Park for a nice lunch in an Italian restaurant. Btggraphix had kindly suggested we could camp in his back yard tonight, so after lunch we headed down the Peak to Peak highway in his direction, stopping on the way for Sally to brew up another cup of tea, and watch the humming birds:
It was lovely to see btggraphix and LaDawn again and enjoy a drink on their balcony looking across to the distant planes. Allowing us to stay over was doubly generous since they were delaying their departure for a Memorial weekend camping trip to allow us to stay (they would have departed Friday night, but changed their plans, departing Saturday morning so we could stay with them. Many thanks Brian and LaDawn - we had an excellent evening.
Stay tuned for the end of the trip :( ...
