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On Tuesday (9/12/06), after leaving the campground in Nebraska, we kept heading west. We stopped at a truckstop diner in Odessa, NE for breakfast (yum!), and Emma was quite impressed at the pancakes they served.
Pancakes have been her breakfast of choice on this trip, but she's never seen one like that!
The scenery continues to be beautiful. This is just such an unbelievably diverse country. Sunflowers, Helianthus annuus, have been on the roadsides everywhere here in the Midwest. They're so pretty and cheerful.
Just before lunchtime, we saw the last license plate that we needed to get the "full set." Keeping lists of states seen on plates has been a game I've played since the first long family car trip I can remember. We've gotten all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and seven Canadian Provinces so far on this trip!
We crossed into Colorado at about11:30, and it was not what I was expecting. I thought it was going to be mountainous, but for a long, long time, it was still just flat, flat, flat.
I don't know why this surprised me so much, except that all the touristy things you hear about Colorado are in the mountains. Much like the perception that it "rains all the time in Washington State," when what people mean is that Seattle and some other parts of western Washington get a lot of rain. Washington is a big state, and much of it is high desert and sagebrush. Colorado is a big state, and much of it is flat.
We stopped at Pawnee National Grassland around midafternoon, and finally saw prairie dogs! We actually drove off on a side road for a while, and got out and walked around a bit to watch them. They're very funny, the way they pop up and look around, then squeak and scurry away. We also saw harriers hunting low over the burrows, and horned larks, western meadowlarks, assorted sparrows, pronghorn, and a coyote on our way back to the highway. A lovely rest stop.
When we got to the center of the state, we were finally getting to the mountains. We went through Estes Park, stopping to get some groceries, and continued on to Rocky Mountain National Park.
What do we see almost as soon as we pull through the entrance booth? (Using our Parks Pass again, so it's like we're getting in free!)
Elk! Really, really, big deer. They are to "deer" what bison are to "cattle." (Except deer aren't domesticated like cattle, I know, stop it. I'm talking size and attitude, here.) Very impressive.
We stayed at the Moraine Campground within the park itself, another beautiful campground. It got cold at night-when I got up in the morning, the mud puddles in the road were frozen!
The next day (9/13/06) was so relaxing. We didn't have to drive anywhere far away because we planned to stay two nights in the park, so we could just kick around and be tourists. We decided to drive up over the Old Fall River Road, which goes up to the Visitor's Center at the top of the pass. It leaves from a very pretty valley.
The road goes across the flank of the mountain in the right foreground, and winds its picturesque way to the big ones behind. The road itself is unpaved, one way, and closed in the winter. It is also very close to the edge. Yikes!
Along the way, we saw lots of pretty streams, waterfalls, woods, and breathtaking views.
I got out of the car at a couple points and poked around some of the streams (Emma was asleep, so Shaun stayed in the car) and managed to snap a picture of a new butterfly:
Hoary Comma, Polygonia gracilis. These beautiful critters were everywhere, especially as we went farther up the mountain.
The aspen trees were starting to change color, and where there were large stands of them, it was stunning. (I'm starting to run out of adjectives. You can just assume that everything from here on out is breathtaking.)
As we went up the road, the rock got more obvious and the trees shorter, until finally, we were above treeline. We saw golden-mantled ground squirrels, least chipmunks, lots of birds, and yellow-bellied marmots (above treeline on the alpine tundra). The view from the top of the pass, elevation 11,796 feet, was amazing.
Unfortunately, the elevation did not agree with Emma. She was asleep when we got to the top, and when she woke up and went walking around, she started feeling dizzy and sick. I could feel the altitude in my sinuses and the lack of oxygen in my muscles, but at least I knew what was going on. Poor Emma just felt miserable. She was white as a sheet, and we had her "safety towel" near at hand as we went driving back down. Her tummy doesn't like twisty winding roads under the best of circumstances, and adding 11,000 feet didn't help. Because of Emma and the altitude, we didn't go on the trail across the alpine tundra, but maybe next time. I still need to see a pika!
Back at the campground, Emma and Shaun had "naps" in the camper (though I don't think there was actually any napping) while I went off on my own for a walk. I went down the hill from the campground to the river valley, up the road, and back into the campground. All told, it was just over an hour, and I saw some birds, including mountain bluebirds (new to me), a very pretty river,
lots of elk grazing in the floodplain
and some gorgeous wildflowers:
Emma perked up once we got down off the mountain, and she really perked up when we had dinner and a birthday party that night. Emma's 3rd was celebrated with cupcakes, a present, beautiful stars in the cold air, and the sound of elk bugling across the valley.
The next day (9/14/06), we packed up and headed out of the park. We went up over the top on Rt. 34 again, but luckily nobody felt too icky this time since we didn't stop at the high part.
On the west side of the mountain, in the marshy ground of the Beaver Creek area, we saw another BIG mammal- a moose! Despite all the time I've spent in Maine, I've never seen one bofore this.
Actually, I may have seen one before. I have a vague memory from a family camping trip to interior Maine, of seeing a moose standing in a pond eating vegetation, but I was really little and it may have just been something that I saw on TV that got mixed up with other memories. This is the first time I'm sure I saw one.
Anyway, we're back on the road, and on our way to our last night camping, somewhere in Idaho...
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