Sunday, October 25, 2009

COLORADO - ESTES PARK











Nic decided that as we had come this far west we may as well go down to Colorado. We were so close to the Rocky Mountains that it seemed almost criminal to not check them out.
We drove from Wyoming to a place called Estes Park and were looking through the brochures the motel had when Nic came across one for Sombrero Ranch. One of the things we had wanted to do was stay at a Dude Ranch and go riding. Most places don’t seem to do one night stays and the ranch that we found that did (courtesy of the Lonely Planet guide again) was booked the night we wanted and you couldn’t ride the horses at this time of year. But luckily for us Sombrero had horse riding all year round. We rang and left a message saying that we wanted to go on a ride the next morning. We had left it a bit late so didn’t know if they would actually get the message in time.
At 6.20 the next morning my phone rang. I actually thought it was my alarm and just pressed any old button until I realized it was a call. Half asleep and in the dark I was desperately trying to find the right button while saying “hello” fifty million times hoping that I hadn’t cut them off.
Nic thought it was quite amusing.
Anyway they were able to fit us in and at 9am we were off - me on Ralph and Nic on a chunky black horse called Rhino (called this because he walked like one). Our guide was Sarah and she took us up hills and down dales (don’t know what a dale is actually - I guess the opposite of a hill) and back around to where we had started. We weren’t allowed to do anything but walk (we would have loved to go for a bit of a trot or canter) but it was a great way to see things and made a nice change from the car.
We had planned to go Rocky Mountain National Park and then off to Boulder but we got sucked in by the township of Estes Park. It was really cute with lots of lovely little shops so we spent time there instead of Boulder. We did some more damage to the credit cards (I bought a beautiful red onyx necklace - no idea when I am going to wear it but it’s beautiful) and then headed of to the Rocky Mountains.
Being the full on nature lover that she is Nic was beside herself at the Rocky Mountains. We drove to Bear Lake and I actually thought she might wet her pants she was that excited. There was quite a bit of snow there and the path was really icy and slippery. We didn’t really have the right shoes on and kept slipping every other step which sent Nic into fits of laughter.
Apparently the idea of me falling over and possibly breaking bones is hysterical.
Or maybe it was the wing flapping thing I did to try to get my balance.

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