August 19, 2022 On To
Rocky Mountain National Park
Everybody wants to talk to
me and touch me. I let them. I am so popular.
I woke up in the middle of
the night and the winds were blowing and it was cold! I shut a few of our windows so we wouldn’t
freeze!
Spouse joined me on my
morning walk. We headed up the road out
of the campground, then down another road.
The cows were moo’ing (proper moos , none of that Jurassic honking) They
were on a hill and I heard them through the night. Our view is of the White River and the
mountains across the way. It is cool,
maybe about 50 but the sun is warming things up. A doe and two young bucks ran across the road
just a bit in front of us, giving the cows competition for attention.
Back at Hannah, not much
to get ready. We are in a campground,
that means no hookups. Just clean up and
close up and go. We are having a few
issues with Hannah. Spouse has to help
her close her slider. This is NOT a good
thing, but as long as it works, we are good on this trip. Her electric switch for the water heater
isn’t working so we have to turn on the propane. Other than that, she is being cooperative.
We decided to check out
this other campground that we could have chosen. We turned right out of the campground and
followed the road along the river. It
turns into a lake. It is a beautiful
drive for about 6 miles. We definitely
would have preferred the other campground, but a sign said we could not tow so
like dummies, we believed it. The ranger
told us it was ok. Not sure why that
sign is there. Anyhow, we were going in
the right direction so it was good to explore.
We then crossed over the dam and back onto hwy. 9 north. At hwy 40, we turned east heading to
Granby. Another one of those scenic
drives, does it ever get old? NO! When
we got close to Granby, we asked our GPS to provide campgrounds (not RV
parks). She had us go north on hwy. 34
to an Arapahoe Forest campground on Lake Granby. Here it is a Friday, and there was a single
site available that would fit us and we grabbed it. First come, first served… we can stay 3 days,
or more! We could not believe our luck. We set up, made a stellar lunch as the rain
began to fall. We didn’t care as we were
good! And, we have cell service!
After the rain subsided,
we headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park which is only about 10 miles up
the road. Up until this point, we heard
horror stories about getting a space in an RV park (that is why we didn’t even
try), and then about getting a timed entry permit. When we got to the visitor center, they
told us that coming in from this entry
point, you can enter after 3 pm (it was 2:50 as we were told) or before 9
am. None of this hassle of time permits
that is required if you entered through Estes Park. This just made our lives a whole lot easier. None of this is easily available on the web
site. All of our anxiety of dealing with
this part of our journey was a waste. I
can’t believe it is so hard to get any details, but we know it now.
So at 3, we headed into
the park. There is a heavy burn scar
from a forest fire for the first couple of miles, then the meadows and mountains
start to sing. We winded up to a
beautiful viewpoint.
We got a lay of the
land so we could plan our visit in the area.
Looks like we may need a couple more days here… We made our way back down, stopping at an old
homestead. We hiked about a half mile
back to it as it started to rain some.
This was the Holzwarth homestead.
This couple kept asking me to take pictures, which I did. When I bumped into them in the parking lot,
for one more picture, I found out that he was a Holzwarth! This was his ancestors property so he thought
he would check it out. How fun is that!
It is cold and kind of
rainy now and then. Spouse sat outside
with Rudy. It was amazing how many
people came up to pet him. And he let them,
he is so popular.
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