I am in Boulder, CO today, crashing with Michele and Brian once again. I left the Bay Area on Friday and have been heading to Chicago since. I guess I didn't make much progress the last two days. Only a couple hundred miles, but I did get to explore a bit of Rocky Mountain National Park.
On Friday I drove up to Russian River and grabbed a few goodies for folks in the Midwest. I got stuck in some pretty bad traffic all the way from Novato to Sacramento and it took about an hour longer than it should have. Past Sacramento it cleared up and I had clear sailing on into Nevada. I drove until pretty late at night and found a national forest to get some free camping space. In the morning I woke up to find I had parked myself in an absolutely beautiful place that I had no idea about.
After dawdling for a while and taking some photos I got back on the road making it to Wyoming before I started to feel tired and in need of a break. I pulled over at a rest stop and tried to nap, but somehow I couldn't fall asleep despite that fact that I had been having a hard time keeping my eyes open on the road. Because of my dawdling in the morning and my extended break for tiredness, I didn't make it all the way to Colorado that day. Instead I found another national forest to crash in. Unfortunately this one was not anywhere near a pretty as the one in Nevada and I was not even inspired to take any photos in the morning when daylight returned.
Since, I was already behind my personal schedule I decided to go straight to RMNP, instead of hitting Boulder first. I drove over to the park and stopped at the visitor center where I discovered that backcountry camping permits were $20. Guh. no way I am going to pay that when I am used to free permits in Cali. Especially, not by myself for one night. So, I decided to do some day hikes instead.
I hiked up towards Ypsilon Lake that afternoon, but I failed to make it due to lack of daylight and some snow coverage on the trail that I was not willing to struggle through. I only made it to a tiny lake with the appropriate name of Chipmunk.
I had a difficult time finding a camp spot near the park that evening, but I eventually found one I was not too uncomfortable with and I managed to get some sleep. And that brings us to today where I went on another hike up to Thunder Lake in the Wild Basin section of the park. There was a lot of snow in the last mile or so of the approach to Thunder Lake, but today, armed with a ton of daylight due to an early start, I didn't let the snow deter me. It sure slowed me down though. The payoff was pretty worth it.
After the hike I got an interesting note on my windshield but that deserves it's own post. after reading the note and laughing all through my lunch I drove down to Boulder and I have been hanging out with Michele and Brian since. We just returned from trying a new pizza place, that was kinda good. Not amazing but definitely good. Tomorrow I am taking off for Chicago but not too early. I have about 16 hours to go and two days to do it. So I don't need to leave early at all.
1 comment:
whats the note??
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