2003 Vacation continued

We spent the afternoon driving from Santa Fe to Pueblo. We found a motel and spent the night, then continued on the next morning. We arrived in Estes Park in the early afternoon. We stopped at the Visitor Information Center to see what was available for camping. The private campgrounds around Estes Park didn't appeal to us so we headed into Rocky Mountain National Park to look at their sites. After a scenic loop through the east side of the park, we drove to the campsite that was nearest Estes Park. It was a nice site by the Fall River, but unfortunately, it was full. There was one more private campground just outside this entrance to the park so we decided to take a look at it. It turned out to be be a very nice site on the side of the mountain. We paid for a site and set up out tents.

After making our camp, we went back down into town where we spent the rest of the afternoon, eating supper and looking in the shops. The next day, Lyndsey and I went for a hour-and-a-half hike in the national park, covering probably, a couple of miles. Later, all three of us went to the Fall River and spent some time looking at rocks and enjoying the scenery. We went back into town that evening and had dinner and relaxed on the river walk. The next morning, we broke camp and packed up. After breakfast in town, we began the drive home.

This was Friday, and we had initially planned on stopping somewhere in New Mexico or Texas and spending the night. As we got closer to Amarillo, we began to discuss driving straight through to Oklahoma City. We knew this would get us home very late, but none of us relished the idea of spending the night in Texas and having to get up in the morning and drive for another 3 or 4 hours so we kept on going and finally arrived home shortly before 3 a.m.