Good Day with a Bad Ending

We decide to drive to Loveland one day. My Mom wanted to look at some shoes she had a coupon for and I thought I might have a look myself. My Dad also likes to eat at the Cracker-Barrel and they only seem to be in north Denver and there is one in Loveland. I always get the city of Loveland confused with the Ski Area of Loveland but my parents were patient with me and explained we were not going to a Ski Area to buy shoes.

After eating in the Cracker Barrel and my Mom buying some shoes we decided to go to Boyd Lake State park. We found the park after first making one wrong turn but once at the park none of us seemed that impressed with the park. It was just a lake and did not seem to have any thing special about it so we hardly got out of the car.

I had seen a sign for Rocky Mountain National Park and ask if this was the normal route we would take to the park. My parents said this route goes through Big Thompson Canyon and sometimes they go this way but usually come up from Boulder. I suggest we go back to Denver via Big Thompson Canyon, Estes Park, Boulder and then Denver. They though this was an OK idea so off we went.

For some reason I did not take any pictures on this drive but have found a couple on the internet to post in the blog. This picture is of the Big Thompson Canyon.



The canyon is very impressive as soon as the road enters it. The walls of the canyon are basically straight up and covered with very rugged looking rocks on both sides. The bottom of the canyon seems to only have enough room for the road and the creek. The really narrow part of the canyon is only a few miles and then it open into more what I would call a normal canyon or valley with mountains on both sides. Here is another picture I stole off the web.



Looking at how narrow the canyon gets at places I understand why the flash flood in 1976 was so devastating. The flood killed 143 people. Here is a picture from 1976.



We saw a group of 3 young big horn sheep standing by the side of the road as we drove to Estes Park. From Estes Park we drove south going through the mountains to Boulder. At one point we past a deer crossing sign and there was a group of deer within a 100 yards of the sign. It is good that the deer know where they are supposed to cross the road.

The drive was really nice until we got back into Denver were at one point the traffic came to a stand still. This would not be a big issue except for the guy behind us did not come to a stand still without the help of the back of our car. Mom was driving and when she stopped she started saying, “don’t hit me, don’t hit me, don’t hit me” while looking in the rear view mirror and then came the screech of the tires and the boom sound of the vehicles meeting. None of us were hurt and I don’t think he did a lot of damage to the car but we can’t tell just yet if the frame of the car is bent. The police were called and showed up in a short amount of time and filled in a report and sent us on our way. Here is a picture I took while wait on the police.



It was a good day but ended in a manner that we would have rather skipped.