COLORADO - DAY 15 - OCTOBER 5, 2023

One last shot of the park we stayed in last night.

The scenery sure has changed.

When we saw this tunnel coming up we didn't think anything about it.  Once we started through it we realized just how big the mountain we were going THROUGH was!  This tunnel went on FOREVER!

Going down the road pics....

We had to go up and down one mountain that scared me so badly!  You see, we were 2 thousand feet up on a mountain, towing our camper, there NO guardrails and of course we are on the outside lane of a two lane road .  Now let me explain something here, when I was 17 I was in a bad car accident where we went off the road to the right and we flipped twice.  I'm afraid of the right side of the road!  The road we were on had a white stripe on the right hand edge and passed that white stripe was AIR!  Two thousand feet down!  Needless to say there are no pictures from this part of the trip.  Its been a long time since I was that scared and Walt wasn't much better off than me because we had traffic coming towards us and on the curves we had to hug that white stripe.  The ones coming towards us had to hug the center stripe because to their right was solid rock!  I have to find us another way down!  We can't do this again.  When we got over  this mountain we stopped to get gas and when we pulled over our brakes were smokin'!  Smoke was just pouring out and they were HOT!  Lesson learned here, pull over when you can to let those brakes cool.  A 7% grade downhill for 12 miles is too much.

So where are we headed?  Rocky Mountain National Park.

As we got closer I started calling around for a campsite.  I called a couple of "resorts" that are in our campground book and they were all over $100 a night.  Nope, not doing that.  I finally found one that we decided to "accept" because we have to stay SOMEWHERE!  So we're in Elk Meadow Lodge and RV Resort to the tune of $82.90 a night.  I NEVER!

So we reach Estes Park and find out that the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park is just a mile away from where we will stay.

Elk are everywhere here.  Here's a picture from when we drove into town.  This is at a sports complex.

We paid for 3 nights here and couldn't do anymore because the campgrounds are closing down for the season.  It seems snow will be here before long.  We're glad we got here when we did but we'll be glad to get the heck out of here too.  We don't want to have to go DOWN the mountain in snow.

I have an Internet connection!  But it is sooooo slow.  I have a jetpack that we use when traveling and it gives me good speed until I reach a certain point and then it cuts down on the speed.  I've reached that point.  I tried to call Verizon but of course it was after hours so I will call in the morning to get an upgrade.

Our radio is static-y and stations are few and far between,,,,except for the Spanish station.  That one is crystal clear!  Go figure.

Game night!