COLORADO - DAY 16 - OCTOBER 6, 2023

All the way around this was the day from hell.  Every trip has one and this was ours.

First thing I did was call Verizon and got my jetpack upgraded.

Up and at 'em we took a ride around town to get the lay of the land.  There are so many people here!  I was here years ago and the place has really built up since then.  What was once a little mountain town has turned into a metropolis!

We decided to get lunch and found this place just outside of downtown.  It was crowded but we were seated fairly quickly.  We were given menus and I noticed that a lot of sandwiches had stuff on them we just don't eat.  You know, like avocados!  We finally ordered steak sandwiches sans the mushrooms and chipotle mayo.  I mean, how can you screw up a steak sandwich.  Well, they did!  They laid before us plates with a roll, cut all the way through, a big no no for a steak sandwich or a sub.  On this roll was STEAK!  Not shredded meat, pieces of steak!  Pieces of steak so big that I cut each one in three pieces!  Who makes a steak sandwich like that???  Oh, I also ordered onion rings as my side.  They were served totally limp.  Didn't eat those.  To their favor, they did bring me an order of french fries when I held the onion ring up for them to see and it just kinda, sorta, fell down over my fingers.  Walt said, "you know, we shoulda just gone to Burger King."  I agree!  This lunch was not worth the $40 we paid for it.  

Off to the park we go.  We stopped at the visitors center where we got the stamp for the passport book and we bought two sweatshirts.  This is where we found out that this park also has timed entry into the park  It was just about 2 o'clock where we could go in without one.

The park was packed!  The pull offs were filled with cars and there was no place to park so we could get out.

In some places were higher than the clouds.

More scenes from the park that I could get from the truck.

We decided we would come back tomorrow.  I would get online at 5 pm when they released more timed entry passes.  I was on and didn't get one.  I was so disappointed!  That is putting it mildly.  Trust me.

Ok, so we had to get laundry done.  The laundry room is just a stones throw away from our spot so we gathered everything up and went there only to find out they closed it for the season!  What???  There's still two more days to this season for this park.  Ok, load it all up and try to find the one we saw earlier.  We turned down one street and 6 feet away from the roadway is a bull elk walking up the road.  I didn't bring my camera!  I grabbed for my phone but by then we were passed it.  What a shot I missed!  We finally find the laundromat only to find out its $3 to wash and 25 cents for 4 minutes of drying time.  I'm not a happy camper!  I'm ready to get out of Estes Park!

Back at home we caught up on some things we follow online and called it a night.

We're glad this day is over!