We headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park, and the ride up was really good. However, once we got closer to the top of the mountain, they were doing road construction. Thankfully, the construction crew wasn't out yesterday. However, the road was very gravelly(sp?). The road condition made it very difficult to find the "sweet spot" in the road. I made it through, and probably got a couple of people behind me upset for going so slow, but, oh well. We made it to the top, and made a pit stop at the tourist center. On the way down, the road was at least paved, but once again, I was taking it slow and easy. Then the deluge began. Rain on a mountain doesn't start as a drizzle, and get progressively worse, it starts hard and gets harder. Additionally, my brand new rain gear was in the car with Brenda and the kids, who had gotten ahead of me due to people either coming out of the tourist center, riding their brakes and stopping down the mountain, or stopping to take pictures of moose. With the rain, it also got dark, combine that with a tinted shield on my helmet and wearing sunglasses, and well, it wasn't a pleasant ride. by the time I passed where Brenda had pulled over, and I found another spot to pull over, I was already soaked, and just wanted to keep moving to get out of the rain. She said at one point the thermometer in the car read 45 degrees, picture that temperature being cold, wet, and moving at about 40 MPH. Yeah, as cool as the ride was, that part wasn't fun.
We got out of the park, and did the remainder of our driving for the day and got to Winter Park at about 5:15. The kids did a "Child's Night Out" where they had dinner, played games, and made S'mores while Brenda and I had dinner and walked around the village. The condition was that we spent $60 ($30/child) in the village, and the child care was free. Well, considering the village is almost a ghost town in the summer, luckily, the dinner was $50 alone, so we just had to spend an additional $10, so Brenda got a couple of magnets, and we had coffee.
We really (Brenda especially) like the hotel. She said in a couple of years she would love to go back there with the kids for skiing in the winter. If you want to check out a nice hotel, look at the Zephyr Mountain Lodge.
While we were walking around the village, we asked someone working in the gift shop where a good place to get breakfast would be. He suggested Carvers. Carvers is not easy to find if you don't know it's there. The restaurant had about 10 tables inside, and maybe that many outside, I didn't really see. The breakfast once again was amazing. I had an egg white omelet with blackened chicken, avocado, cheese, and some Mexican type sauce.
After breakfast we got on the road to head towards Glenwood Springs. We were following the map I plotted out, but somewhere missed a turn and got to I-70 about 15 miles east of where I wanted to get it. Unfortunately, we didn't follow the Colorado River as much as I wanted to, because we missed the sign for the Colorado River Road. Regardless, the drive was very scenic, and even the drive on I-70 was scenic, it was very interesting going through some of the tunnels with my sunglasses on, but I just kept at a constant speed and followed the person in front of me.
Once I got to Glenwood Springs, I was sort of on my own. Earlier, before we actually got on I-70, we stopped for lunch. As we were eating, I noticed some very ominous looking rain clouds and really wanted to get going to avoid them. Brenda said to get going and she would catch up to me. As cautious as I have been going, and with her in the car, I figured she would catch up to me before the 41 miles it was to get here. Well, even though she was going over the speed limit, and I was going under, she didn't catch up, so I didn't know the exact way to get to the hotel. Additionally, the signage after getting off I-70 sucks to say the very least. I should have taken a left, and took a right. I finally stopped and asked, and realized where I should have taken the left. Once I got to the road the hotel was on, the signage on the hotel wasn't very good because the words blended into the building, so, I still drove past it. Well, I finally made it, and now I'm posting this blog, and the kids are using the indoor pool.
I'll try to put up some pictures later, they are all on Brenda's computer.
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