Day 8 – Rocky Mountain High

Rocky Mountain National Park

No, not talking about the legal marijuana in Colorado. Today we visited Rocky Mountain National Park which is not far from Denver and at one point we were 2.2 miles above sea level. At that altitude doing anything close to hiking was out of the question for us. You have to be much more acclimatized before you attempt any serious exercise. If you don’t believe me, just ask Lady Gaga who was hospitalized for Altitude Sickness in Denver yesterday and that is only one mile high.

Jeanne and John at the Alpine Visitor Center on top

The park was beautiful, but driving was a bit scary with hairpin turns and no guardrails. One mistake and you could roll for a mile. We saw elk, marmot, chipmunks and wildflowers, but no Rocky Mountain goats. That probably would have taken some hiking and some luck. We knew the park would be cold and dressed accordingly but it was still surprising to encounter sleet when we were out trying to photograph the elk. Colorado gets over 300 sunny days a year but we have realized that they also get thunderheads even on sunny days and we could see them rolling into the park about the time we were leaving. We only had a few drops of rain while we were there.

Elk (from a distance)

After the park, we drove to Laramie, WY, and found the town to our liking. Of course Laramie is a small town, but it’s also a college town. The University of Wyoming is located there and we toured the campus. Afterwards we went to the small downtown section for dinner and were surprised at the low cost and good quality of our meals. Ribeye Steak dinner for $12. Really? Afterwards we went to the Old Buckhorn Bar and Parlor to listen to some live music and that was fun. The bar is a college bar when the students are in town, but tonight it was mostly townies and the closest thing to an old-time cowboy bar that you are going to find, complete with stuffed animals heads and a bullet hole in the mirror over the bar. The guy playing was cool. He really didn’t have much of an audience besides us so at the end he played a couple of oldies (probably for us) and we left singing “Coming into Los Angeles”.