Colorado is home to us because Jay is a native, born in Denver, and I have lived there since I was around five years old. Our only child was also born there and so for Christmas, they wanted to “come home.” For the first time, we would be pulling our 5th wheel somewhere. We prepared to move it as I packed up some decor I had out, secured everything, loaded the dogs into the truck, pulled in our five pullouts, and hooked up our truck. It took us about two hours to successfully prepare. And then the real joy of heading “home” filled us up. We arrived in Loveland, Colorado after two days of travel. One night, we spent in our truck at a truck stop with no room to open the slides allowing us to sleep in the RV. That was a rough night! But in the morning we fed the dogs and headed out early. That afternoon, we arrived in Loveland. Though I neglected to take pictures, Loveland is a beautiful city that is all about its name. There is a large sign of red letters spelling LOVE and our RV resort had a fence for “love locks” with street names like Spooner Ave, Lovers Lane, and Sweetheart Way. Well, you get the idea. It took two hours to set up our RV at the Loveland RV Resort where we stayed for twelve days. We met up with our child, who had been staying with my brother in another city nearby, the next day. Then it was a beautiful reunion where I had a tough time trying to stop hugging them! I miss them terribly!
The first night they stayed, our dog, Tristan, who we’ve had for ten years and is eleven years old, slept right up against them on the sofa all night! He really missed his ‘Sissy,’ the name he responds to for them. The bed opens up, but the kid didn’t want to have to put it back together every day!
And yes, our child is non-binary so we use they/them, etc. It was a sweet reunion for us all. We also spent Christmas with my oldest brother, which was wonderful! We visited several of our old ‘haunts’ from when we lived there. Our first trip was just our child and me to Georgetown, a beautiful, historic mountain town.
Every street is historic in Georgetown
And here is the beautiful Opera House.
Georgetown also has a rail you can ride called, The Georgetown Loop. It’s a gorgeous ride, though we didn’t take that on this trip.
Next, we headed to Estes Park. This place is meaningful to Jay and I. I’ll explain that in the next post and why this blog is called On Hummingbirds Wings. We also wanted to go into Rocky Mountain National Park where you will see more incredible wildlife than you could imagine. Sadly, since we’d moved from Colorado, the park requires reservations to visit and they are often booked from August through February. There are several reasons for that, the biggest one being this is the time of year the elk ‘bugle’ as it’s mating season. October is their most active time and you may hear the bugling all day and night. However, the town of Estes Park is directly outside Rocky Mountain National Park. So we spent a day there. It’s also the location of The Stanley Hotel, the hotel Stephen King stayed in that brought about his writing of The Shining. You bet I grabbed a picture to share with you!
And we saw two large herds of elk in town. Yes, right in town!
The one below was on the side of the road and so close I could have reached out and touched her. But never, never do so. First, because you’ll scare them. Second, despite being in town, they are wild animals and have been known to attack and kill humans. But she was so close I could smell the musk on her.
Not the best picture but I couldn’t get out of the truck and she was so close I couldn’t turn in a direction to get a better picture.
More elk along the road. This may not be fascinating to you. But I grew up in a family that watched for wildlife on all our vacations. It’s something I love to see. It is one of those things that fill my heart. The wonder of how magnificent wildlife is and how lucky we are to see them living free and up close is amazing. And honestly, I was so excited about seeing that elk that aside from the picture of The Stanley, I didn’t take any of this quaint little town. Guess you’ll have to come see it for yourself. But plan ahead and get reservations for access to Rocky Mountain National Park where you will likely see Bighorn sheep, possibly wolves, and moose that have traveled down from Wyoming into the park. There are also deer, marmots, chipmunks, groundhogs, and for my Australian friend, Bel, there are squirrels. LOL. That’s a story for another time, though.
On Hummingbirds Wings 