Day 8 - Rocky Mountain National Park

On Friday we drove about an hour and a half to the western entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park, near Grand Lake.

If you've never been there, it's a gorgeous huge (415 square mile) park with Trail Ridge road slicing thru it's mid-section. Trail Ridge is the highest continuous paved road in the U.S. climbing to over 12,000 feet in elevation. That's above the tree line, which could explain why we saw snow in August.
While at the park we were so excited to see lots of wildlife! A herd of elk, a couple of deer, a coyote, and even an adorable chipmunk.
After we stopped for a quick lunch in Estes Park,
we took a drive to one of our favorite spots - Bear Lake. We followed the path around the lake and stopped for a few photo ops. (I'm not sure what was going on with my hair. I don't remember it being windy. Oh well.)

That noisy little Chickaree (squirrel) wasn't too happy that we were in his space and thought he might be able to chase us away. It was so cute.

Bear Lake is such a gorgeous peaceful place. We make a point to go there every time we visit the park.

Afterward we discovered a sweet lake nearby called Sprague Lake. We also came upon a family of (what I think was) Mallard ducks. Check out all the ducklings!

The amazing thing about this park is that there is always something new to explore. It's so immense that you could spend weeks there exploring and enjoying God's awesome creation.