September 27, 2015 Traveling into Santa Fe

Sunday. September 27, 2015 Traveling into Santa Fe

 We left around 830 for a short 3.5 hours ride into Santa Fe.  The terrain was pretty barren with mountains in the background but nothing stood out.  We did see a lot of pronghorn grazing with the cows but that was it.

My first look at Santa Fe was where are all of the tall buildings all I could see was adobe style building, houses and apartments. No tall buildings as far as I could tell.  The weather was in the 80's and sunny.  It should be this way for the rest of the week.  We will be getting a rent a car tomorrow for a couple of days to get some sightseeing in.

I did some laundry as we watched football and chilled for the rest of the day.

Check out this mountains

those are mountains in the background

adobe looking apartments

September 26, 2015 Travel day heading to Santa Fe, New Mexico

Saturday, September 26, 2015 Travel day heading to Santa Fe, New Mexico

We said our goodbyes and big thanks to the Warrick family for all of their hospitality.  Mike did his drug screening for Amazon this morning and then on the road heading toward Santa Fe.  Mike is going to be working from October 14 till Christmas.  We plan on stopping at Trinidad CO for the night and then into Santa Fe on Sunday for 5 days before picking up our car at the end of next week. Then we will continue on to the balloon festival in Albuquerque NM.

We stopped at a Walmart and found a good spot towards the back which turned out to be pretty quiet.

The Warrick's kids. left to right Tara, Jo and Hunter

Denver Skyline

Mile High Stadium

Castle Rock

Pike's Peak we will have to come back to this

September 25, 2015 NO POST FOR TODAY

September 24, 2015 Day at Rocky Mountain National Park

Thursday, September 24, 2015 Day at Rocky Mountain National Park

Melissa and Jason were very kind to lend us their car for the day.  Mike and I left fairly early and headed to Rocky Mountain National Park.  I was about seeing big horned sheep and we were told that this is the rutting season for the elk.

The ride through the canyon was gorgeous and I was constantly looking for the sheep.  No luck!!!  The ride up to the top of the mountain range was breathtaking.  The trees were changing bright yellow on a dark green background.  We saw some elk and heard the bugling going on.  As we made it close to the top we decided to do a 1 mile hike on the Trail Ridge Mountain Trail and Mike climbed to the top of the rocks.  Elevation was 12,304 feet.  The big thrill of the day as we were coming down as I saw a marmot sunning himself on a rock.  I made Mike stop so I could take a really good picture and the marmot posed for me.

On the way through Estes Park we tried to see the famous Stanley Hotel but there was so much construction going on that we couldn't get close but I did get a picture of this hotel.  Oh well maybe another time.

Happy Birthday to Mike's sister, Deborah.

The view as we were climbing

Autumn foliage

Our little beggar-Jeff I didn't feed him  LOL

Another view of the mountains

This was on top of the rock pile that Mike climbed see pile below

Mike on the top

Mountain ranges from top



PICTURES OF THE MARMOT AS HE SUNNED HIMSELF

He is a big one

Stanley Hotel

September 23, 2015 Travel day to Fort Collins and a stop at Wind Cave

Wednesday, September 23, 2015  Travel day to Fort Collins and a stop at Wind Cave

We decided to leave Rapid City a day early and head to Fort Collins, CO.  We planned on stopping by Wind Cave as it was on our way and we could park the RV and take a tour.

Mike and I have been in quite a few caves around the country and they all seem to be different in one way or another.  This is the only National Park that was made a park in order to protect this cave.  It has 3 levels of caves and at this moment the cave goes for 145 miles in a one square mile.  They are still exploring.  It is the 6th longest cave in the world and the largest formations called boxworks.  We took the Natural Entrance Cave Tours that takes you down about 300 steps to a depth of about 209 feet.

This cave was discovered by 2 brothers back in 1881 when they heard a whistling noise coming from a hole.  The wind coming from this hole could blow your hat off hence the name wind cave,  The Indians believe that this is a very spiritual place and historians have found no evidence that they have entered this cave.  We all know how the Indians believe in spirits and with this cave breathing in and out through this hole I can see why they never entered the cave.

Again we have found something different about this cave compared to others.  It was a fairly dry cave but I did get a few drops of water on my head.  They say that to have drops of water fall on you was lucky and we sure do need it.

After leaving the cave we made it to Fort Collins in a short time and seeing that there is no overnight parking at Walmarts along our route we are going to stay with our oldest daughter's in laws again.  Mike has a drug test on Saturday in Ft. Collins for his job at Amazon .  The Warricks have been most gracious to let us stay in their driveway for a couple of days.  Also they are letting us borrow their car tomorrow so we could go and see Rocky Mountain National Park.

This is a piece of boxwork from inside the cave

This is the hole that the 2 brothers found

Boxworks

Boxworks