On Sunday, we decided we would finally break orbit and actually leave our immediate neighborhood for pretty much the first time since quarantine started. Rocky Mountain National Park, which is about an hour and a half north of where we live, has been in the process of opening up on a limited basis, and we were excited to get back to one of our very favorite places.
To try to manage the gusher of people who, like us, are looking for a little bit of natural respite, the park set up a reservation system so they control the numbers coming in. We made our reservation about a week ago, so we packed a picnic, loaded up the car and made the trip up.
Taking little day trips to the mountains used to be a pretty commonplace event for us, but it had been months since we drove more than a few minutes from home. It was a little weird to put on a few miles, but definitely a good weird. Seeing the mountains again was a real breath of fresh air. Literally. It was like 2o or 30 degrees cooler up there.
There was indeed quite a line of cars leading into the entrance of the park. We were thankful to be in the maybe 60 or 70 percent who had reservations lined up. Lots of other folks were being turned away, so once again we must give big-time kudos to Erin’s excellent planning-ahead skills.
Once in the park, we drove up to our usual picnic spot, enjoyed a nice lunch and walked around, enjoying the beautiful scenery.
What follows is basically a photo essay, because none of my hacky words can really do much to add to this.
Even Amelia took some photos from the backseat.
Ah, that was the stuff. I find getting up there and breathing the fresh mountain air to be extremely renewing. Even if I wasn’t quite as used to the elevation as I used to be and was feeling that a little.
It was a really nice day and I know the kids were also happy to get out of the house for a while. Particularly since the house was still without AC and it was going to be in the 90s around Denver that day.
We got home in the late afternoon, and while the house was a little stuffy, it wasn’t terrible. We have AC service lined up for Monday, so the end is in sight. After a fun day in the park, the kids and I settled in for a few hands of Uno.
Each one of them won two hands, to my zilch. OK, I’ll admit to maybe holding back on a Draw Four or two, but for the most part, they beat me fair and square.
