Rocky Mountain National Park...

July 30-31st, we camped at Shadow Mountain Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. I'm not sure the plethora of pictures I took can adequately capture how breathtakingly gorgeous this place is. Rocky Mountain National is a little over 2 hours from our home and has the highest average elevation of any National Park. A lot of the Park is above treeline, with delicate tundra landscape. As we were driving to our campground, we OOHED and AAHED at the scenery and even stopped to see a moose in a field by the side of the road. There were glacial lakes, yellow-green fields, majestic pine trees and amazing views...

Here's the moose we saw (below). Yes, the grass was THAT green.  These pictures are taken with my cell phone and aren't edited at all.

When we arrived at our campground, we were slightly disappointed to learn that pine beetles had destroyed most of the trees near the camp, so the Forest Service had cut them down and had made piles of wood to burn. In areas of Rocky Mountain National, pine beetles had already left the telltale signs of orange dead pine trees and in other areas, the pines were green and untouched. 

We arrived and set up camp just as a storm rolled in and we scrambled for shelter in the trailer. We played a fun new card game Hit The Deck for about an hour, then decided we were not going to be able to cook our tin foil dinners over a fire in the pouring rain! Plan B was heading to the quaint little town of nearby Grand Lake and having dinner at a barbecue restaurant there. It wasn't what we'd planned, but it ended up being a lot of fun. The rain stopped and the sun came out, as it often does in Colorado, so we browsed the little shops before heading back to our campground for the night.  The lake was gorgeous and I don't think we saw a single mosquito the whole weekend.

Saturday morning the sun came out, so we made a fire and fixed some english muffins with sausage and eggs, fruit and juice for breakfast, then headed to Grand Lake. We rented a speedboat for an hour and went out on the lake. There were so many cute cabins with matching boathouses surrounding the lake and we each chose our favorite cabins. Dan let each of the kids take a turn behind the wheel before we headed back. We watched the hummingbirds and got some ice cream in town, then went back to do some fishing at Shadow Mountain Lake. 

I've often said since moving to Colorado that the sky is more beautiful here than anywhere else I've ever been and that was the case as we fished by the lake. Another rainstorm was headed our way, but the sky was filled with fluffy white clouds and the sun was warm. We brought some chairs and an umbrella down by the lake to watch Ashlyn & Corey try to hook us a big one. Unfortunately, the big fish never showed, but we had a relaxing afternoon playing in the cold water and enjoying the sun.  Claire was was drenched and I'm not sure how she coped with that cold water, but she didn't even seem to mind!

We packed up to try to beat the rain on Saturday afternoon and drove home another way. We passed Winter Park ski resort, but turned around and headed back after seeing they had an Alpine Slide! Unfortunately the Slide closed at 6 PM and we missed it by just a few minutes, but we stayed and had dinner on the patio at the base of the ski lifts and watched the interesting parade of people that walked by as we ate. The kids loved taking the free gondola from our car to the resort and we promised Ashlyn we'd return soon, either to ski or to ride the Alpine Slide. Claire was beyond tired and grumpy by the time we got to the car and headed home. She was asleep in the car as we pulled out of the parking lot.

I woke up Sunday morning with one of the worst headaches I'd ever had in my life. I immediately went in the bathroom and threw up. Dan was kind enough to teach my Primary lesson for me which I'd already prepared and I went back to sleep for 4 hours. My father-in-law called that afternoon and I told him about our weekend and he suggested that I had altitude sickness. Of course! I often get headaches and sometimes nausea when I go skiing or to my family's cabin in Wyoming. Our campground the night before was at about an 8,500 foot elevation and though we live near the "Mile High City," I was sure that altitude was to blame for my raging nausea. Well, we do plan to camp in Rocky Mountain National again, but next time you can bet that I'll be drinking a lot more water!