In a Mountain Town

I wrote a new original song the weekend before we left, inspired by a few mountain towns, but mainly Estes Park.  In case you're curious, Brad Fitch also goes by "Tropicowboy" ... that's his publishing name.

Today was the day we were planning on spending in town in the first place due to rain in the forecast.  Do the tourist thing. We'd had a bit of a preview a few afternoons before - but we stuck with the plan.   Slept in until 8:00, had cold cereal and yogurt for breakfast, and took 34 into Estes Park ... both to drive through Horseshoe Park and see the other way into town and the Fall River visitors' center.

Cool thing is, they had the Longs Peak Geo-Situ pin I was looking for.  A souvenir shop next door had a vinyl relief map of the entire state of Colorado - cool, but not quite what I was looking for.  Still, I made a note of the company that made it (Hubbard Scientific) for future reference.

We both love Christmas and had seen The Spruce House Christmas shop on the west end of town a few days before and stopped there first.  Got some ornaments as presents as well as a small tree for the hearth at home that Vicki thought was cute.

We stopped at Penelope's where I had my traditional Elk burger, and Vicki had a Buffalo burger.  For those of you familiar with Columbia, imagine a really cool cross between Booche's and the 63 Diner ... with really good burgers and fries.  That can be elk or buffalo if you want.

We went into a few other shops ... a rock shop where they had some beautiful rocks, fossils, and rock formations, a few tourist shops (t-shirts and little souvenirs) and into an Alpine shop type place ... where I found the Hubbard Scientific relief map of RMNP I was looking for!

We each got an ice cream cone at Hayley's along with some toffee.  It did rain off and on ... we just dashed into shops when it rained.  It wasn't quite the washout predicted earlier in the week, though.

We sat by Fall River in Tregent Park and just inhaled the atmosphere mentally.  And by 4 we were ready to go back to RMNP.

Hadn't had quite enough river, so we went back to the Fern Lake trailhead and in a couple hundred yards to a spot we'd seen before where I again tried to record some river sounds.  We were watching a couple of fly fishers again ... too much conversation for a good recording, though.

Back at the campsite, I had some leftover rice meal.  Vicki wasn't really hungry and just had a small snack.

The deer were back in the campsite, and we were treated to a spectacular pink and purple sunset as storm clouds hugged the ridge to the west and south.

Cooler tonight for sure. We'll be breaking out the heater.

Only two more days in the mountains.  Starting to hit me.  It's almost over.

Little did I know.  Vicki had a suggestion before we went to bed.  That we start back Saturday afternoon instead of Sunday.  She suggested we pack up Saturday morning, go do something in the park, and leave in the early afternoon.  A little compromise.  I had to wrap my head around it.  Leave early?  Hmmmm....