June in Colorado!

Friday I took the afternoon off, and my boss, Maureen, and I went to Estes Park for a "mind, body, and golf" clinic. It was a lot of fun, we hit balls on what has to be one of the most picturesque golf courses in the United States--seriously! It is surrounded by mountains, the most imposing being Long's Peak, and huge boulders--just gorgeous. We had a session with a sports psychologist, a yoga instructor, and then golf lessons with the two golf pros. The pro made fun of me, because when it came time for the driver lesson, I said, "I hate my driver" and he laughed and said, "How do you know?" because my driver still had the plastic on it! Anyway, I even hit a bucket of balls with my driver. Who knows, I may even play a round of golf this week!





Long's Peak, taken from Trail Ridge Road!



Saturday morning, I left Estes Park and drove to Denver via Trail Ridge Road, an extremely scenic drive high in the mountains. I stopped and hiked in the Rocky Mountain National Park, along the colorado River where the water was rushing with snow melt and the elk were grazing in the meadow. I stopped at the art festival in Grand Lake (yes, there is a Grand lake in Colorado too, and as mountain lakes go, it is pretty Grand!) and enjoyed that little vacation town. I made my way over Berthoud Pass, and stopped for dinner at a little Italian restaurant in Idaho Springs--a great vacation, all the way around the loop!

This little guy, he was eating a bush on the side of the road. My intention was to take a picture of all the people trying to take HIS picture, but then he looked at me and I couldn't resist taking his picture myself!




Sunday morning, for the first time in my life, I had to talk myself into getting off the couch and taking a hike. I decided on Chief Mountain, because it is only 2 miles to the top but fairly strenuous because it gains over 1500 feet of altitude, up to 11, 200 ft. It still amazes me that I can be on the couch, watching Federer make tennis history, at 9:30 AM, and be on the trailhead at 10,000 feet by 11 AM! Anyway, my intention was to eat lunch at the summit, but it was starting to look cloudy by the time I was at the top, so I just enjoyed the view for a few minutes, and hiked on down. When I got to my car, it had started to snow a bit!









I decided that since I was close to Mt. Evans, which is the highest paved highway in America, I would just drive up it. I was a bit annoyed that I had to pay $10 just to drive on a highway, but it was worth every penny! Beautiful, scary, and a real blizzard came up, so windy that I could barely see the road--and the road is very narrow and the fall would be very very far! If there had been enough room to turn around, I might have, and saved this for another day (I was afraid it would get icy, and also, I was in shorts and it was 24 degrees!)

Imagine, a real blizzard in June! It seems, though, that the weather was worse in Aurora, a tornado that was on the ground for over 30 minutes--so I think I prefer the blizzard!