September 12, 2018 - Fort Collins to Allenspark, CO

Sometimes when you plan a vacation things don’t always work out the way you plan. We were supposed to fly to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina yesterday but a “little” hurricane named Florence changed those plans. We had been watching the weather and started making phone calls to the resort last Friday to see what they were doing about reservations. On MONDAY, they finally cancelled the reservations! We cancelled our flights and our neighbors, Dante and Lisa, who were supposed to travel with us, invited us to join them at their family cabin in Allenspark instead. It’s not the beach, but it is incredibly beautiful!

After settling in at the cabin we hopped in the car and headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park. We drove to Bear Lake and hiked the one mile loop around the lake. The fall colors are beautiful – and early – because of our drought conditions this summer.

We headed toward the Alluvial Fan area of the park and were lucky enough to spot a mother bear and cub making their way along the stream! I think this was the first time we have ever seen bears in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was exciting!We hoped to hear the elk bugling so we headed over to the Horseshoe park area. None there, but we were able to see smoke from one of the fires west of the park. We turned and headed back to the main road, we spotted a few elk back in the trees and stopped. They never came out to the meadow, but we could hear them bugling.We finished off the day with dinner at Smokin’ Dave’s BBQ in Estes Park then a few games of cards back at the cabin.