I took the whole day off today – I had to run 12 miles and we’re leaving as soon as Matt is off work, which would leave me about three hours to work. So I decided running with my friends a little later was a WAY better idea than going to work for such a short time.

I didn’t meet my friends til 8:30, which was really nice – I had plenty of time to do a bunch of stuff before I left in the morning. I did my things, and headed out on my run.

Twelve miles at Green later, I headed home to finish getting everything together so we could leave.  I went to take a shower… And there was no hot water. I guess the power had gone out while I was gone and blew a fuse or something on our boiler when it came back on… Ugh. I showered as best I could in the freezing cold water and figured I’d do a better job once we got to Estes.

When Matt was finished working, we threw the last of the stuff in the car, and we were off! 

The drive was uneventful – there hasn’t exactly been any snow, so there was nothing exciting about it. We came straight up and rolled up to our accommodations. When we checked in, the guys told us if we hurried a little, we could still make cheese and wine at the club house.. We hurried over, and grabbed a glass of wine and some snacks. 

We decided to order some pizza for dinner and just have that and some wine at the condo. We ordered and went to Anthony’s to pick it up. On our way there – pretty close to the parking lot, in fact – there was a herd of elk on the road… Only in Estes Park!

Pizza and a decent bottle of wine in front of a fire and a tv show was AWESOME. Nice, chill… And then we went to the hot tub, too. Super relaxing.

When we came back to the condo, I FINALLY got my proper shower! Felt amazing. Then, more TV and bed.

Matt had to work the next day, so we chilled out in the condo most of the morning, with coffee by the fire and a good breakfast. He decided around lunch that he was done, and so we got a bonus afternoon to fart around.

We headed to Rocky Mountain National Park, bought our parks pass at the gate, and went in. 

We took the little hike around Sprague Lake with quite a few other people, but it was really pretty. The trail was a touch icy, but not too bad. When we were done, we decided to go over to Lily Lake, and so we did the little hike around that was well. 

We headed back to the condo, showered, and went out to dinner at The Barrel. They had a pretty decent tap list , and the BBQ food truck was delicious! I had (most of) a half a chicken, so good! When we’d had our fill, we went back to the condo and to bed. 

The next morning, I got up early, as I do, and had some coffee… Matt got up eventually, and we had some breakfast. We farted around for a bit in the morning, did some working out, and then headed back into the national park to hike to Gem Lake.

We found the trailhead, went to the bathroom, and started walking. We walked for a little bit, and then (thankfully), it occurred to me to look at a map… And realized we were going the wrong way. Oops. 

We made our way back to the trailhead and saw that there was an entirely different trail that we hadn’t even seen before, which was the correct trail. 

The hike was nice. Mostly straight up, but not too long. We got to the lake and hung out there for a bit. Eventually, we started getting kinda cold just sitting, so we headed back to the car. 

On our way back to town, we saw Ed’s Cantina, and Matt decided we should have lunch there since I’d mentioned that we’d been there before. I wasn’t too excited about it, but whatever. 

Holy shit, was I wrong. The margaritas were delicious and the food was AMAZING. I had this  bowl with rice and beans and tomatoes and cheese… YUM! While we were there, graupel started falling out of the sky – it was perfect timing, as we’d finished our hike before it started precipitating. 

Then we went back to the condo to clean up and chill out before dinner. 

Dinner was at Bird & Jim. We’d been there before, for an anniversary years ago, and remembered it being really good… And it did not disappoint. My fish was delicious, the wine selection was good, and we had a great time all around. 

Then back to the condo and bed. 

We got up this morning, had our usual coffee, made some breakfast, and headed into Rocky Mountain National Park once again for yet another hike.

Today was Deer Mountain. It’s about 6 miles, and it’s suppsed to have some really pretty views. We chose it in part because we weren’t quite sure of the snow conditions, and it’s pretty low angle, so there was little to no avalanche danger. I guess we should have known that this year wouldn’t be too bad for snow anywhere, given how little we’ve had, but still.

It was quite a pleasant hike, not too much snow, and the views got prettier and prettier the higher we got. When we got to the top, we had a snack and chilled out for a little bit. Eventually, we started getting cold because the wind picked up a little bit, and we headed back down the hill to the car.

Back at the car, we wandered for a bit to find a good spot to watch the sunset. We parked where we thought would be good and got out of the car and set up a timelapse. We watched the sun go down, and it was really kinda pretty.

Then, it was back to the condo for some charcuterie and some wine that we’d brought from home… What a great few days!

Here’s the video: