Life On The Ranch, RMNP

For some reason I think all of us would trade in our wingtips for a pair of boots and spurs. The Cowboy nostalgia is still alive today and I think just maybe it will never go away.

After leaving Estes Park we travelled through Rocky Mountain National Park via Route 34, the Trail Ridge Road. Now this road, though paved, is no more than a 2 lane standard road with 10% up and down grades and more switch backs than I can count.

Of course we get the “Holy Shit what is that” look from people when they see 68′ of truck and trailer coming at them on a 180 deg corner. I’m getting used to it and if they can’t figure out which side of the road is their side, well I can’t fix that.

The views are magnificent from going up to the top to coming down.

Now we drove the Top of the World Highway coming south out of Alaska and no offense to anyone but, they should think about renaming it to “sorta almost the top of the world highway, but not quite”.

When the potato chip bags start exploding, you know you’re at the top. We had no issues and arrived safely on the other side of the Continental Divide in time for lunch.

We arrived at Winding River Ranch and Resort in Grand Lake, CO. This is literally a stones throw from Rocky Mountain National Park.

If your going to make your way to the Rockies this is the place to stay. We promised Addy we would go horseback riding as a birthday present so we scheduled this right away and settled in for the day.

On Monday I had planned to go hiking in Winter Park so Shawnda dropped me off early and I made my way up the mountain and back down the other side up to Vasquez Ridge and back down and over again.

Ran into these 3 boys first thing in the morning.

View from the ridge

I found one little strawberry hiding in the shade.

A great hike and I had been waiting a year to get back here and make the trek.

The rest of the day we spent exploring the ranch and made a few new friends.

Cowboy and Shilo.

This is Donkey, he turns up in the darkest places and just makes his way around saying hello.

Addy’s stinky friends.

Andie meets cows.

Tuesday we made our way back to Winter Park for some Alpine Slide racing, rock wall and trampoline bungie thing. The Alpine Slide is so much fun and you get to ride the chair lift up so it’s pretty low impact except on your butt.

Addy and I caught Alex Singing to himself when we were on our way up on the lift and he was racing down. We laughed so hard but still can’t figure out what he was singing.

We took to taking after-diner bike rides and meet a few moose while out on the road.

This big feller was a little camera shy.

This mom and calf were causing a traffic jam.

We went off to get some rest for a day of Cowboying on Wednesday.

Well Wednesday came and it was time to saddle up. After a little orientation we were assigned our broncos. Addy got to pick her horse; she had been wanting to ride Cowboy since the day we got there and she meet him.

My horse was Redneck and Shawnda’s horse was Twister but was nicknamed Gravedigger!

Alex got Tomahawk a nice paint and we all headed of into the park.

It’s hard to take pictures when riding a horse, well at least pictures of peoples faces. After 2 hours we returned to the barn.

I am pretty sure we will do that again but not until everyone can feel there rear end again.

Our last day was just an around the town and ranch day.

Sticking our feet in the mighty Colorado river that borders the ranch.

Since Grand Lake was so low from no rain and very little snowfall this past winter we got to do some fossil hunting.

And just playing games.

As with all of our adventure and wandering you have to move along so Friday we said good by and headed off to leave all the incoming weekend warriors to there last hurrah of the year on Labor Day weekend.

We are off in search of much bigger things.

Dinosaurs