Colorado

We woke the following morning to sunny skies and a cool 50 degrees.  Andrew was up early to put in a full day of work from the cabin.  The remote work flexibility is great, but early morning meetings from a couple time zones behind can be a bit rough.  Everyone else took advantage of a day with no plans and slept in.  Angela and the kids spent the day playing pool, air hockey and darts and lounging in the TV room.  We were, without exaggeration, a two minute drive to Rocky Mountain National Park and decided to go into the park to cook a backpackers dinner. 

Gareth decided that after dinner, he wanted to try some night driving. With Gareth driving, Angela and Gareth headed back into Rocky Mountain National Park.  The traffic in the park had died down, so it was very low pressure driving besides the curves and darkness.  After a while, Gareth decided he was ready to turn around. It was at the exact moment that Angela looked down at the map to look for a good turnaround that a large elk stepped into the road. Gareth had been listening and learning and was paying close attention to the road, so he was quick to react. He stopped quickly and avoided the elk. The drive back was uneventful, and we slept well that night. 

We all enjoyed our new location enough that we decided to add another day.  The consequence would be turning a two day drive into a single day 15-hour slog.  We felt this location was worth it.

On our second day, we drove into town for breakfast. Andrew headed out for a hike on the Contential Divide Trail along Shadow Mountain Lake. Surprisingly, the kids wanted to walk around town to shop. Kaia went along on our shopping excursion and seemed to enjoy the town as well.  The town of Grand Lake was a pleasant surprise for us all. It has good hiking, lakes, and cute shops.

The rest of our time, we spent playing games in the game room or out on the patio. We enjoyed the slow pace of the afternoon and finished off our evening with one last trip into the National Park where we saw more elk and moose.