Wednesday, September 12th, 2012
Our last day of true vacation!
We left the Oregon Trail and continued back towards the East, quite melancholy at the thought of our vacation ending. Then panic set in.
Vacation? Done? Finished? Completely?! We can't have that! It can't be over that quickly! Besides, we still lack several souvenirs for the folks back home! Quick, turn the car around!
We left the hotel in Laramie and stopped at a gas station parking lot to decide where to go. The result?
Estes Park, Colorado!
My parents and sister had stopped there briefly during her Twenty Trip back in 2010, so we thought it would be a fun side-trip.
Plenty of interesting shoppes to poke through and souvenirs to obtain.
Off we went. The terrain was most interesting, how we went from the flat, flat lands of southern Wyoming, into bluffs and hills, then suddenly we were in the mountains! These were impressive, but not as much so as the Beartooth or the Tetons. Those ranges just shot up out of nowhere, where as coming into Estes park the climb was more gradual.
Anyway, here are some pictures.
I should have kept count of the national forests we drove through.
The fog lent a fairytale quality to the mountains. Who knows how much further they go up?
Mom was trying to take a nice picture, but I hadn't photobombed at ALL for this entire trip! I got this one in, though. It's a good one.
We stopped by the river (name of river: unknown) to take pictures. Oh, beautiful!
It was chilly, definitely a mid-fall afternoon, but enjoyable.
One can almost see a castle atop this.
Dad and I on a (very slippery) boulder in the middle of the river.
Mom stayed safely on dry ground, camera in one hand and 911 on speed-dial in the other
for when we fell in.
Had to take a pic with Spidey!
(Haven't you noticed him in previous pictures? He's in quite a few, the sneaky little photobomber.)
This is my new shop! I should have applied to work there--see that "help wanted" sign in the window? How cool would it be for a Laura to work at Laura's?
To polish it all off, we swung by Rocky Mountain National Park. Technically we never went inside the park, but I walked to the other side of the sign--that counts, right?
The end!
My Twenty Trip was over before I knew it. We drove late into the night, found a hotel in the middle of somewhere, and drove more the next day. My aunt and uncle in Gilman, Iowa
fed us lunch, then we made our way back home.
What a vacation. I'd change a few minor details, but nothing major. Another week would have been nice, but at the same time it may have been to long.
I was glad to be home, but the travel bug has bitten.
Thank you for reading, folks! I'm sure I can sort a few more pictures into another post or two, but we shall see. I'm not sure where this blog shall go next.
Have a good one!
~Kiwi~
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