My sister Jan & her husband Stuart live in Lyons, CO, a town about 20 miles from Estes Park. I gave then a call & they came to Estes Park for dinner. It was fun to catch up.
This morning I drove most of the Trail Ridge Road. It was just as busy as the Going to the Sun roan, in fact, maybe more, and like Glacier, had construction (well, repaving) producing one lane sections. I stopped at many of the turnouts & took some photos.
After returning from the Trail Ridge Road I tried to purchase a copy of the "Rocky Mountain Day Hikes" to decide which waterfall I'd hike to, but it is out of print & not available at any of the bookstores in the park. So, a change of plans. I headed back to the campground & had a early dinner with plans to go back up part of the highway this evening when there is more interesting light. Of course, if it was like last night, it won't work - we had heavy clouds and a bit of rain. Right now it looks good, but the weather changes very quickly here at Rocky Mountain. If it works, I'll add more images tonight.
I did go back out - First to the Wild Basin area to photograph Copeland Falls and a hen & chicks of a bird I don't recognise. On the way back along CO 7 I took a couple of photos of a building at the St Malo Center. A beautiful stone building that looks to have been a chapel; I think it is now a visitor's center, but was closed when I went by.
On the way back to Estes Park I passed the Stanley Hotel. A large hotel complex that inspired the Stephen King novel "The Shining". The story is that Stephen King spent the night in room 217 the night before the hotel closed for the season. The hotel was almost empty of guests, had a reputation of being haunted, and from that came the idea for "The Shining". Parts of the TV mini series was filmed at the hotel, although Stanley Kubrick's major motion picture with Jack Nicholson was not.
After that I went back on the Trail Ridge Road. Although the light did get better, the images didn't. I did get a rather soft photo of a Pika, some more elk, but the sky was prettier than the photos suggest.
As usual, the rest of today's photos are at the Lakeshore Images 2011 Trip Journal for today.
After that it was back to the trailer for a snack & calling it a night.
Until Tomorrow!
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