Rocky Mountain National Park Again

We decided to go back to Rocky Mountain National Park and find that dirt road that we missed the other day. As we drove up the interstate, approaching Boulder, Colorado, I looked out and thought how lucky these people are to see such beautiful mountains from the highway.

Back through the beautiful town of Estes Park.

Back to Rocky Mountain National Park, BUT THIS TIME we found the dirt road. It actually starts our as a paved road, which is probably why we missed it the first time.

We were told that in the 1980s a dam broke and flooded the whole town of Estes Park. Huge rocks and bolders came tumbling down from the mountain. We found the area where a lot of rocks and bolders fell. You can see water running down. Can you imagine a flood of water coming down there & all of these rocks and boulders rumbling down?
So up the dirt road we went.

At times it was pretty steep and at ALL times it was dusty! Getting around the sharp curves proved to be a challenge to Bill. Especially with the ruts and the cars who for whatever reason decided to stop on a curve….. I thought we were going to lose it on one curve, but Bill somehow managed to keep the bike “up.”

The dirt road up the mountain turned out to be a good idea and we were so glad we went back again. The scenery is so different.

As we drive up, this is the view that I have.

About half way up, we had to stop and let the motorcycle cool down. We had to drive so slowly because of the cars, the engine couldn’t cool.
As we got closer to the top, the view became even prettier and sometimes scarier. You can see the lodge at the top of the pass in the photo below to the right.

Then it was back down again. We took the same route down that we took the other day, but I think the photos look different because of the lighting. It’s amazing how different the same mountains can look.

You couldn’t ask for a more beautiful view while eating lunch.

I think tomorrow we will take a rest – from riding that is, we still have things we have to do to prepare to move on to our next stop, which we don’t know exactly where that will be yet…..