Hiking: Day Two and Trail Ridge Road

Our second morning of hiking found us at Bear Lake, but early enough to get a parking spot! Bear Lake is absolutely gorgeous with a beautiful and easy trail around its perimeter. It was a perfect place to start our morning...

After Bear Lake, we fueled up the car and set out on Trail Ridge Road. This road spans 48 miles of the park (although we only did half of that) and climbs to over 12,000 feet above sea level. The views of the mountains were stunning and the drive included some white knuckle moments in the minivan! We stopped at many pull-offs along the way to check out the views and at the top was the Alpine Visitors center, where we had to bundle up as the temperature dropped about 25 degrees from when we started. And like our trip to Olympic National Park, we got to see snow in the summer!

Our morning was pretty packed so we took it easy in the afternoon. Chris had completed his Junior Park Ranger booklet so we took a trip across the street to the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center where he took his "oath" as a park ranger (he also did this at Olympic). After that we checked out Estes Park and had dinner at Poppy's Pizza (we chose it because of the name). The flowers in town were gorgeous, the beer glass was funny and we even found a peace pole!