Hot Sulpher Springs, CO, 9/30 + 10/1/12

 After leaving the Rocky Mountain National Park, we stopped for lunch at the historic Grand Lake Lodge, on the southwest side of the Park. We took a short, but lovely hike on the Adams Falls trail before heading to our destination of Hot Sulpher Springs, CO for a day of soaking.

 Our room at the Hot Sulpher Springs Resort. It had direct access to the 20+ pools at the resort - all filled directly with mineral water from the area mountains. Each pool varied in size, water temperature, water content and colors, and were all delightful to try out.

This is the view from our room. 

 This pool was one of the larger pools and had its own waterfall. The Ute Indians discovered and used these water sources and claimed that they could cure disease and prevent aging.

This shows how the pools are all positioned within the natural landscape. We thought these was a great way to end our side-vacation in the Rockies, soaking our bodies after our long hikes. It also eased the tension after weeks of traveling and transitioning. Ahhhhh.

Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, October 7, 2012

 We were able to spend a Sunday at the annual Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. The Rio Grande Valley has ideal flying conditions year-round so this festival draws hundreds of balloonists. The show starts with the "dawn patrol" at 5:45am with a handful of balloons going up as the skies start to lighten. Then the "mass ascension" begins around 7:00 with hundreds of balloons taking off throughout the next hour. It was quite a colorful site and a lot of fun to see! As we left ALBQ on Monday morning (en route to Salt Plains, OK), we enjoyed another round of colorful balloons flying over the blue skies of NM. The photos below become more colorful as you scroll down the page - they align with the timing of the sun rising higher in the sky, capturing the colors of the balloons. Enjoy!





Rocky Mountain National Park, 9.28-9.30.12

On Wednesday, 9/26, we drove from Bosque del Apache NWR to Ft Collins, CO (a 9-hour trip that took us from south to north in both NM and CO) where we spent the remainder of the week in training, learning more about the ServCat (Service Catalog) database system. This is the system that will house all of the files we will scan throughout the year and is currently "live" and active for use within the Parks Service. This system will ultimately be open for public access. We enjoyed our time in Ft. Collins and learned a lot. We were really impressed by the knowledge and passion of the crew that trained us (Richard, Rande, Sarah and Tiffany). We left Ft Collins on Friday evening and made our way to Estes Park, CO for a long weekend getaway in the Rocky Mountains (on our dime). This is in front of the Riverview Pines, our hotel along the Falls River, a great location in between Estes Park and the Rocky Mountain National Park.

The view from our room. The mountain air felt wonderful.

The second floor patio is ours!

Weekend warriors: we got up and out first thing Saturday morning to catch-up on EXERCISE! It felt SOOO good to get out and HIKE, and we spent over 6 hours doing just that! We hiked all around the Bear Lake area of the Rocky Mountain National Park and loved it. As you can see, the weather was perfect for hiking and the scenery was breath-taking. This was a far cry from both the conference room in Ft. Collins AND the beautiful desert scenery in Bosque.

Oliver at Bear Lake. It was about 9:15am at this point in the day.

Oliver at Nymph Lake - just a short hike from Bear Lake. We think it was named because of all the lily pads on the water's surface where the nymphs probably all live.

A few more angles of Nymph Lake.

We continued to climb with each lake that we added to our route. The trails were well maintained, easy to follow, and delivered indescribable beauty at every juncture. We absolutely loved our time out that morning.

Dream Lake.


The Aspens were in full golden color and were gorgeous.



Yes, there was snow on the higher elevations. It was hard for us to believe that it was that cold anywhere close to where we were hiking. The snow provided the perfect "!" to the natural beauty of the Park.

Lake Haiyaha - the highest point that we hiked and the greenest water and rockiest shoreline. We stayed for awhile, ate a few snacks, and took it all in.

Another angle of the golden Aspens trees.

After a very late lunch in Estes Park, we went back into the Park for more. By now, there was noticably increased traffic and people around, and also more wildlife. We spent several hours stumbling upon pockets of cars, people, cameras and Elk herds. It was as entertaining watching the people as it was watching the Elk. Traffic was backed-up at various locations in the Park while people fell over themselves to get the perfect photo. The Elk also put on quite a show - lots of trumpeting and movement. They were all unphased by the attention, which went on throughout the late-afternoon into the evening.

More Elk at dusk. We had to remind ourselves that we were in THEIR home.

Inside our room at the Riverview Pines.

Sunday we got up and started up into the Park enroute to Trail Ride Rd. and the west side of the RMNP.

As we climbed in elevation, the temps were noticably colder. We really did not appreciate the lack of guardrails along the road as we snaked around the mountains. This is not a drive for the faint-of-heart!

Lake Irene and the Continental Divide.

This is the headwater of the Colorado River. It was cool to see just how mild the river is at this point, knowing how large and rapid it gets as it carves its way down into the Grand Canyon.