Day Three: Trail Ridge Road and Bear Lake

We took the Old Fall River Road through the Rocky Mountain National Park. The road traveled above the treeline to almost 12,000 feet. The road is only open May through October, is only one way, and not paved. It was a little scary but the views were worth it! We stopped at the Alpine Visitors Center at the top and then took Trail Ridge Road down. It took us most of the day.

Here is the Old Fall River Road

We had high hopes of seeing spectacular wildlife on our drive. We saw several of these-the yellow bellied marmot. This wasn't exactly what I had in mind....it's pretty much a rat!

There was a gift shop at the visitor's center and my mom bought Evan this eagle puppet. We complained as we bought it and told him he would never play with it. In typical Evan fashion, he was determined to prove us wrong. From this point on "Grover" participated in every part of our vacation. The only way we could get Evan to take pictures with us if it we asked Grover to be in the photo.

Here we are at 12.000feet...a little chilly.

In the gift shop, Grover wanted to live in the Christmas tree.

Another cool view from up there.

My aunt bought Evan these binoculars for the trip. He loved them and we enjoyed using them to see some herds of elk (thankfully we saw something other than the rats!).

Once we got done with Trail Ridge Road, we stopped at Bear Lake...another gorgeous spot! Later, we headed to pick up my parents at their hotel so we could go get our Mexican food fix. On the way, we saw a large herd of elk randomly hanging out outside a coffee shop. Of course, we didn't have our camera this time. Then, on our way to the restaurant, we saw a black bear run across the road. We followed him as he ran into a hotel/resort area. I was so thankful I was in the car and not at the resort where he ran. He was so fast!