Oleno State Park aka River Rise State Park

Got off work a few minutes early and decided to use whatever daylight was left to go for a quick hike in Oleno State Park with Whitney.  We took the suspension bridge across the river and hiked the obvious trail (not sure if it has a name).  After walking about 1/4 mile beside the river, we encountered several deer having their afternoon meal.  Each time I head to Oleno, I see deer, but with the brush, it’s often hard to get a decent shot at one, always sticks and trees in the way.

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Aug 16 – Drive from Estes Park to Walden, CO. via Colorado State Forrest

Frustrated by our lack of Moose viewing, we hit up google, and found out that Walden, CO was supposed to be the “Moose Viewing Capitol of Colorado”, so we google mapp’ed  from Estes Park, CO to Walden, CO.  A bit discouraged by the fact that Walden is over a 3 hour drive from Estes Park, but even more upset that we hadn’t seen moose, we weighed our options and got on the road before sunup.  Just as I was wondering if I was too tired to be driving, I looked up on a rock face and saw several big horn sheep!  The sheep we had searched all over for in the park were right along side the road!

We drove through perhaps the most beautiful scenery of the trip on the way to the Colorado State Forrest.  We took side roads, and all sorts of places that we were told Moose hide, all with zero luck.  We finally decided to give up searching on our own and drive towards the moose visitor center, where we saw two moose, one decent sized male, on the side of the road!  They were very skittish, and kept their distance, but just seeing them was exciting.

We then went to the visitor center, where they told us to take a trail by  the lake, however there were tons of children and pets, which we guessed was the reason why there were  no moose in the area at that time.  We were both starving, so we went towards Walden to get food.  Now, I’m not sure if road signs measure distance as a crow flies, or the path a vehicle takes, but our gas light had just come on, and let me tell you, that was the longest 22 miles in my entire driving life!  I just KNEW we were walking, as the gas light was on forever, while we had no cell signal.  Since the iPhone’s GPS works off of the data network to receive the maps, we couldn’t even tell how close we were getting!

On the way back, we saw one more moose (the one you see in the gallery), but she was in a severely overgrown area, so we couldn’t get much closer.  We did get to chatting with a fellow photographer, who was local to the area, and showed us a shortcut back to Estes Park, that cut almost 45 minutes off of our drive home.

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Aug 14 – Early AM looking for Moose, then Trail Ridge Rd.

Inspired by our late afternoon success in seeing a moose, we decided to wake up before sunup, drive all the way across the mountain, and back to the Colorado River Trailhead as well as the other small trails around that area.  We went all the way to the park’s exit, and didn’t see a single moose while driving, so we turned around, and one walked right out in front of us!  This female wasn’t very photogenic, and we really had to struggle to get a good shot, going back and forth as she would attempt to hide herself.

After a few hours of moose hunting, we decided to go back to trail ridge road to try our luck at sheep again.  No such luck.  On the way back to Estes Park, we stopped near the Continental Divide, where we spotted what we thought were the same Elk that held us hostage yesterday.  We were talking to a local photographer who was commenting how odd it was that the Elk were shedding velvet so early in the year…and then it happened, two elk started fighting!  You can see the photos in the gallery. This was very cool, as we weren’t planning to get to see elk fighting this early in the year, and we were somewhat bummed that school prevented us from waiting a few weeks before making the trip!

We took an afternoon nap, and then headed back into the park before sunset in order to find a big horn sheep.  We headed over to Sheep Lakes, but on our way spotted a fox that you see in the gallery.  Unfortunately, once again, the big horn sheep didn’t show up at Sheep Lakes.  The park has a great visitor center in this area, that keeps count of sheep, as well as what time they show up, male/female, etc.  We looked at the sheet, and no sheep had been spotted in almost a week.  On the way out, we saw another large male elk, and took a few sunset photos that you see in the gallery.

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Aug 13 – Trail Ridge Road, Bear Lake, Colorado River Trailhead and more…

Today we decide to take Trail Ridge Road. It’s a one way dirt road that goes across the mountain.  As soon as we got off the main road, we encountered construction at Chasm Falls, and were told that it would be 15 minutes before we could pass, so we decided to take the short walk down to see the waterfall.  As we got close to the Alpine Visitor’s Center (where the trail ends) we encountered a few Elk, including one big Mule.

Once we finished with Trail Ridge Road, we headed back down to Bear Lake, where we took a hike along Flat Top Mountain Trail, and then cut over (and down the steep area of the mountain) towards Fern Lake Trail, which was much easier to follow, as it’s not nearly as steep, and is much wider.  We actually thought the Flat Top Mountain Trail was animal made, until we looked at the map, it’s that narrow.

Once done with that, we were told of Moose sightings near the Colorado River Trailhead, so we headed that way as the day grew late.  We hiked all over, in overgrown bushes, over logs that served as bridges over the creeks, and only saw one female Moose.  We decided that we would try our luck in the morning, and headed back west towards the Estes Park side of the Park.

On the way back, we stopped at the “Continental Divide”, where there was a rock face where big horn sheep were rumored to be earlier in the day.  Since we had nothing else to do the rest of the night, we decided to get out and take a look.  Now, since we had time to kill, we were hiking towards the rock face so we could get closer for good photos.  We took a trail that lead up the side of the rock face, and spotted some elk.  We decided to pause and keep a close eye out, just taking photos as they were eating, with several of them, including large males, laying down.  Within minutes, other people spotted them from the road, and began yelling at them to get them to look up so they could get a better photo.  This scared the elk, and they headed towards us, forcing us to remain still for almost an hour before we could go back to our car!

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Aug 12 – Flying to Denver, CO then the drive to Estes Park, CO

Today we had to be at the airport by 7:45, where we had a 4 hour nonstop flight to Denver, CO.  Once in Denver, we used the local bus system, which has a really cool integration with Google Maps (click).  So, using the Google Maps app on my iPhone, we were able to figure out our bus route, and purchase tickets at the counter before leaving the airport.  We took the bus to the rental car agency, then grabbed lunch.

After lunch, we took the scenic byway to Estes Park, Co. and checked into our hotel.  We were both exhausted, but  decided to go ahead and register for our week pass at Rocky Mountain National Park, and took a drive up to the higher areas of the mountain hoping to find elk.  Much to our surprise, we found several.

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Tubing @ Ichetucknee Springs State Park

Well, I finally got my old car working again…for those of you that don’t know, I recently bought a 2009 Caliber because my old 2003 Stratus had some issues.  The most pressing one (and really the only one I need to fix before the sale), was that the drivers side rear hub assembly needed replacing, as the bearings were completely shot.  Ryan Hennessy came over and helped me with this on Friday night, so after Whitney got off work Sunday, we headed to my parents place to take the car up there so they could help me sell it.

After we woke up Sunday, Whitney, my mom, and I headed to the Ichetuknee River to go tubing.  It was a really hot day, which is always good, because I didn’t freeze while going down the river.   I bought a family state park pass for $86, which was good, because as of July 1st, they’re going up to $125+.  Tubes are still around $5-$8 to rent from roadside vendors, so it’s still a really good deal for a weekend trip!

Washington DC Trip – Day 2

Today we woke up a bit behind schedule and rushed to the airport.  We caught the Amtrack into Washington DC, which was a short trip, pretty cheap ($18) and surprisingly comfortable.  That took us to Union Station, where we purchased a rail pass, and would use the subway for transportation the rest of the day.

Our first stop was the National Zoo (link).  We were in a hurry to see quite a bit, and we could go to zoos in FL, so we didn’t spend much time time there, just went as quickly as possible to the animals that we wanted to see.  One thing was for sure, the zoo is a lot easier to walk through in Florida, where there aren’t hills all over the place!

The next stop was the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (link).  We were too late in the day to see the permanent exhibit, as all of the tickets had been given out, so we walked around the temporary exhibits.  It was interesting to me seeing how the photography differs depending on the source (Nazi or Anti-Nazi), and what message they were trying to convey.

After that, we went to the Smithstonian Museum of Natural History (link).

Our final place we had to get to other than the memorials (which are open at night) was Arlington (link).  We stayed to watch a complete changing of the guard ceremony, which I shot several photos of, and Whitney recorded a video of, which I’ll post if I can find a wordpress plugin for video.

After Arlington closed, we headed back to the monuments and took a few pictures, then headed home and ordered Dominoes before going to bed.

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Washington DC Trip – Day 1

Today we had to be up early to get to the airport, and after searching for the remote parking lot, we finally parked and caught the shuttle to the airport.  We boarded our flight at 9am which would take us to Raleigh, NC for a transfer, and then off to Baltimore airport.

Once we got to Raleigh, I overheard something about a delayed flight over the loudspeaker, so Whitney and I walked over to ask what that was about.  Southwest offered us $400.20 to stay for 2 hours and take the next flight into Baltimore, because they had overbooked our flight.  Since we really had no plans for the night other than going to dinner, and we knew we could use the travel voucher for a trip later this year, we agreed.

Once we got to the airport, we caught the courtesy shuttle to our hotel (link) and took a quick nap.  Then we took the courtesy shuttle back to the airport, and rode the Light Rail into the harbor (link).  We ate outdoors as the weather was awesome.

On the way back suddenly we saw about 50 cops chasing two guys…not quite sure what was going on there.  Then we saw a helicopter go up, and then a large portion of the roads were blocked off.  I looked in the Baltimore newspaper and couldn’t find anything about this, I guess this isn’t “news” for Baltimore lol…

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