We arrived at the Colorado Rocky Mountain National Park on Sunday evening.
Cool enough to need a sweatshirt?
Oh, baby, that's what I'm sayin'!
We found our lot in the Moraine campground (this is the nice empty space to the left of our campsite, which plays an important role in wildlife week).
The home builders got to work.
And then Bro set up the amazing chuck box he'd made...
...with it's extra pull-out counter for the camp-stove.
This was the center for some great grub.
If you're gonna camp - take Bro.
We call him Scoutmaster.
And, man, he housed and fed us well.
See this?
It was posted on the door of the campground bathrooms.
We had it memorized by week's end.
"If attacked, Fight Back!"
You don't have to tell me that twice.
"Never get between a mother bear and her cub."
We changed it to...
"Danger! Never get between a camper and her coffee pot."
It's just the absolute best to have coffee with people you love, and to drink it from these little tin beauties...
...first thing in the cool, clear morning or...
...on a chilly evening by the campfire.
Good thing Prince Charming doesn't drink coffee, because he needed both hands free to play his guitar for us as we gathered around the fire every night.
"Rocky Mountain High", by John Denver.
Yeppers.
And in the morning, other campers crossing on the path near our site (on their way to re-read the bear information on the bathroom doors) asked us, "Were you the ones playing and singing last night?"
That was us.
"Man, it was great. Can you play a little more John Denver tonight?"
Happy to oblige, pardner.
The morning also brought our first encounter with new feathered friends.
We had birds within two or three feet of us that none of us had seen before.
Luckily, Beeg Seester had packed her bird book, and we were able to identify this beautiful flier as a black billed magpie (Pica-Pica).
These picnic-ground scavengers are so bold that one came up and took the crust of Seester's sandwich right off her plate when we sat still for too long working a crossword while eating our lunch.
Here he is, looking for more.
When we saw this bird...
...we were just sure it was a woodpecker.
Imagine how hard we laughed when we found his look alike in the bird book and read the name.
"Yellow bellied sapsucker (Sphyraplaisvarius)".
There was no end to the wild life that came right into our campsite.
I got this photo the same day.
It's a rare "yellow shouldered sun seeker (Bro)".
We also saw the mountain bluebird and steller's jays, but, alas, no camera at hand when they were sighted.
Our hike that first day was around Bear Lake (elev. 9500).
Aw.
And awe.
It was a fairly level trail, and less than a mile long, which was nice for the first day in such low air pressure.
It was rather difficult to breathe.
I stopped to watch the fish splashing near the rocks.
It was all so beautiful.
We stopped next to the valley on the way back to camp to watch a herd of elk grazing.
I rolled down the window and took this photograph of those lovely velvet antlers without a telephoto lens.
They were that close, and quite undisturbed.
Afterward, Prince Charming nourished our souls...
...and Bro fed our bodies.
We stared up at the stars for awhile and then God gave us rest.
Day three had ended.
We woke the next morning to the sound of elk bugling.
Remember that little empty space next to our campsite?
The herd of elk had stopped there on a trek up into the mountain.
There was a twelve-point buck within 10 feet of our tent.
Majestic and beautiful.
No camera handy, but I'll never forget it anyway.
After they moved on, we had our coffee and bacon and toast.
I was impressed with Bro's camp-stove toaster.
Like I said, he fed us well.
We packed up after breakfast and took a day trip to Cheyenne, WY, because we'd heard we were supposed to have thunderstorms in camp.
(We're trying to see how many states we can be in love in before we get to heaven.)
As we drove into downtown Cheyenne, we spied this old theater.
"Anyone want to see 'Toy Story 3'?"
We were shocked to find out tickets were only $3.00 each.
But before we could recover from that pleasant surprise, the man at the booth said, "Actually, you're here for a matinee, so it's only $2.00".
A great movie made even more fun by the company, price, and location.
We ate lunch at a sidewalk cafe and did a bit of browsing in the nearby shops.
I liked this red building...
...and that's the only reason I'm making you look at it.
Down the street from this building is a quilt store where Seester and I spent the majority of our browsing time.
I've been wanting to make a crib-size quilt for Baby Girl; something cheerful and fun and all her own for when she visits us.
The quilt will have memories for me, as well as Baby Girl, because I bought the fabric at the little shop in Cheyenne.
I can't wait to get started.
A cheerful little quilt to remind me of a cheerful little day.
Day four was ushered in with elk bugling just after six a.m.
I began the day with a sincere wish for a bath or shower.
I washed my hair with some very cold mountain water and settled for a sponge bath using the dish tub and some water I'd heated on the stove.
Ah, camping.
The Prince and I drove to Bear Lake; the trail head for our longest, and steepest, climb.
We hiked up 1.8 miles, climbing 700 feet.
We passed Nymph Lake.
We stopped briefly to watch the trout and to take pictures to send to the dreamers we met at Dream Lake.
Sometimes the Prince fell behind and I found out later why he'd say, "Just go on ahead."
Eventually, we both got to Emerald Lake, just above the timberline, where we sat on the rock just behind these good people and had a very small picnic lunch.
I spent a long time looking through my telephoto lens trying to find the rock climbers on these cliff faces.
Let me know how you do.
They really are there.
Closer to our perch, we spied a Clark's Nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana).
Beautiful.
Everything was beautiful.
And no mere Inchie could represent it.
Bro and Beeg Seester, meanwhile, had taken the white knuckle scenic drive up Trail Ridge Road, and decided to come back the long way in order to avoid the hair raising drive back down.
They got stuck in some stand-still traffic and were on the road for several hours.
By the time we reunited (the coolers with grapes, milk, butter, and eggs were in our trunk; the boxes with the staples and carbohydrates were in their trunk) and made dinner, well...
You can bet there just wasn't a whole lot of chatter while we ate our salad, spaghetti and garlic toast...and drank our glass of wine.
Ahhh.