Rocky Mountain Highs
Sep. 22nd, 2021 09:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waitingmanDay 13 - Mountains & Valleys
Sept. 23 Sunday – Boulder & The Rocky Mountains
Up at about 9am & a slow dawdle down to the kitchen/dining room for breakfast with our hosts & the dogs, who were still pleased to see us. After introducing Gary & Kathy to the Nespresso machine, ablutions performed & gearing up for the day, we piled into their Buick (a real American car at last!!) for a day in the mountains, peaking at about 11,500ft. Gary acted as driver & tour guide as we left Boulder & entered the Rocky Mountains National Park, after about a 20-30 minute drive. It was kind of nice to be driven around, especially after yesterday's marathon effort from Monument Valley & I was happy to take a passenger seat & take in the sights & heights... of which there were plenty of both. Firstly, we headed as high as the roads could take us, which was pretty high, as Winter is still a way off, so there was no issue with snow blocking the roads & trails. Even the local wildlife was out & about...
Just past the Park entry gates, this little chipmunk was scurrying round... Hard to catch him standing still !!
Going up!!
Waaay above the treeline, at quite a few thousand feet
But not so high up that animals aren't around... including this marmot. Easier to photograph than the chipmunk!
Apparently the views could have been even more amazing if the smoke from bushfires in Washington State wasn’t being blown down into Colorado, leaving the distant peaks in a kind of blue haze that had its own beauty, regardless of what it was hiding. Leaving the peaks, we headed back down below the tree line & a few short trails into the forest, fields & streams
The aspen trees in the mountains were starting to turn shades of yellow & red, breaking up the greens of the forest with blazes of colour that even complemented the dead brown trees affected by beetle-kill – something we’d seen evidence of in Yosemite as well. The Park Rangers are letting Nature take its course with the beetle infestation, which is probably the right thing to do, but still a bit sad...
As we were making our way out of the Park, we saw a few cars all pulled over on the side of the road & wondered what was up. It was a male elk out in the middle of a field & too good to pass up, so Gary, Julia & I grabbed cameras & headed into the tall grass, keeping our distance, but getting the best shots we could
Man... what a rack!!
After so many photo stops, in between picking Gary’s brains for tips on camera & photo technique, lunchtime became afternoon tea-time, then became early dinnertime as we pulled into a favoured cafe/restaurant in a little town not far from the Rocky Mountains National Park for a well-deserved & somewhat overdue meal. Vaguely European-style cuisine & a French waiter... not what we’d expected in the middle of the USA, but no complaints. We paid for dinner & headed back to Boulder via another scenic route & arrived home to feed the dogs, have a couple of drinks & watch a movie set in Australia called Shrimp On The Barbie starring Cheech Marin & a forgettable cast of Australians all hamming up the accent for the straight-to-video American market. Gary & Kathy were amused by our comments & criticisms of inaccuracies regarding geography (the taxi he took from Sydney Airport drove him over the Harbour Bridge from the northern end... the airport is south of Sydney, so - expensive trip!!), the fact that he’d arrived from L.A. by Australian Airlines – a domestic carrier now defunct & how Cheech never seemed to pay for anything... taxis, hotel rooms, meals, airplane tickets... never saw his wallet once in the whole ninety minutes. Not a great movie, but not a bad one either & definitely funny, even if you’re a pedantic Australian who’s obsessed with accuracy of portrayal. And so to bed
Sept. 23 Sunday – Boulder & The Rocky Mountains
Up at about 9am & a slow dawdle down to the kitchen/dining room for breakfast with our hosts & the dogs, who were still pleased to see us. After introducing Gary & Kathy to the Nespresso machine, ablutions performed & gearing up for the day, we piled into their Buick (a real American car at last!!) for a day in the mountains, peaking at about 11,500ft. Gary acted as driver & tour guide as we left Boulder & entered the Rocky Mountains National Park, after about a 20-30 minute drive. It was kind of nice to be driven around, especially after yesterday's marathon effort from Monument Valley & I was happy to take a passenger seat & take in the sights & heights... of which there were plenty of both. Firstly, we headed as high as the roads could take us, which was pretty high, as Winter is still a way off, so there was no issue with snow blocking the roads & trails. Even the local wildlife was out & about...
Just past the Park entry gates, this little chipmunk was scurrying round... Hard to catch him standing still !!
Going up!!
Waaay above the treeline, at quite a few thousand feet
But not so high up that animals aren't around... including this marmot. Easier to photograph than the chipmunk!
Apparently the views could have been even more amazing if the smoke from bushfires in Washington State wasn’t being blown down into Colorado, leaving the distant peaks in a kind of blue haze that had its own beauty, regardless of what it was hiding. Leaving the peaks, we headed back down below the tree line & a few short trails into the forest, fields & streams
The aspen trees in the mountains were starting to turn shades of yellow & red, breaking up the greens of the forest with blazes of colour that even complemented the dead brown trees affected by beetle-kill – something we’d seen evidence of in Yosemite as well. The Park Rangers are letting Nature take its course with the beetle infestation, which is probably the right thing to do, but still a bit sad...
As we were making our way out of the Park, we saw a few cars all pulled over on the side of the road & wondered what was up. It was a male elk out in the middle of a field & too good to pass up, so Gary, Julia & I grabbed cameras & headed into the tall grass, keeping our distance, but getting the best shots we could
Man... what a rack!!
After so many photo stops, in between picking Gary’s brains for tips on camera & photo technique, lunchtime became afternoon tea-time, then became early dinnertime as we pulled into a favoured cafe/restaurant in a little town not far from the Rocky Mountains National Park for a well-deserved & somewhat overdue meal. Vaguely European-style cuisine & a French waiter... not what we’d expected in the middle of the USA, but no complaints. We paid for dinner & headed back to Boulder via another scenic route & arrived home to feed the dogs, have a couple of drinks & watch a movie set in Australia called Shrimp On The Barbie starring Cheech Marin & a forgettable cast of Australians all hamming up the accent for the straight-to-video American market. Gary & Kathy were amused by our comments & criticisms of inaccuracies regarding geography (the taxi he took from Sydney Airport drove him over the Harbour Bridge from the northern end... the airport is south of Sydney, so - expensive trip!!), the fact that he’d arrived from L.A. by Australian Airlines – a domestic carrier now defunct & how Cheech never seemed to pay for anything... taxis, hotel rooms, meals, airplane tickets... never saw his wallet once in the whole ninety minutes. Not a great movie, but not a bad one either & definitely funny, even if you’re a pedantic Australian who’s obsessed with accuracy of portrayal. And so to bed
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Date: 2021-09-22 02:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-09-22 09:49 pm (UTC)