Trip To Rocky Mountain National Park

    The last part of our camping trip in the western United States was a visit to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. We left Yellowstone from the west gate and drove through Idaho to Salt Lake City. That was when we found out that two escaped murderers had been seen in the park. In fact we may well have seen one hitchhiking in the Canyon area as the newspapers said he had been seen doing so.

On the way we stopped to visit some friends who live on a sugar beet farm near Rupert, Idaho. I had no idea sugar beets were so large!

    We spent two nights in Salt Lake City to clean vehicles, clothes and us. While there we visited the Utah State Capitol, Temple Square and the Great Salt Lake. The state capitol building is situated at the end of downtown on a hill. It is a gorgeous building and was recently beautifully restored including being raised off its foundation to put in a new earthquake tolerant foundation.

    Temple Square is the headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, also know as the Mormon Church. The area includes the temple, the tabernacle, conference center, visitor centers and other buldings. The landscaping is lovely.

It is amazing to think that Brigham Young first brought a small group of followers to the desert that was Utah in 1847 and by 1853 they had not only survived but thrived enough to build this magnificent temple. He used the example of a beehive to motivate his people to be industrious, perserving and work hard for the sake of the community and they accomplished great things. Utah is now known as the beehive state.

   Next stop was Estes Park, Colorado which is at the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. The town is cute with lots of shops and the historic Stanley Hotel. You reach it driving through a scenic canyon.

   In the park we drove Trail Ridge Road which is the highest continuous paved road in the world (continuous meaning it keeps going on either end to other destinations).

The highest point in the road was over 12,000 feet high. The views are magnificent!

Alpine Visitor Center on Trail Ridge Road

We saw a lot of elk at both the higher elevations and in the meadows. As winter approaches the elk will move to lower elevations.

We also saw marmots who live in the higher elevations. This one was at the Alpine Visitor Center.

We ate picnic lunches in the meadows with our friends, Meg and Brian, who live in Denver and came up to Estes Park for the weekend to visit us.  

Our campsite at Elk Meadow RV Park in Estes Park.






We found an amusement park in Estes Park so we did some go-kart racing and played a few round of mini-golf. My husband won every time.

 

   One last stop was at the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abeliene, Kansas. The complex is on the land where Dwight Eisenhower grew up and includes his boyhood home, a museum, chapel and his and his wife, Maime's, final resting place.





That was the end of our trip. All we had to do was make the drive home - turn in 403 miles!

Over the whole 24 day trip we drove over 6,000 miles ("we" meaning my husband who drove all but about 20 miles of it). I don't even want to think of how much we spent on gas!