The Life of a Running Momma: Rocky Mountain National Park Trip: End of Trip

Monday morning we ate breakfast and played on the playground before heading into RMNP. We drove past Hidden Valley where they have the Junior Ranger Headquarters. We stopped there the day before but it was closed and nothing was going on. I thought that may have been due to it being or Sunday or because it was raining. I suggested stopping again and Carter and Elise were both stoked. I told them it was their special headquarters because they were Junior Rangers. They were hopeful Ty and I wouldn't get to go because we weren't Junior Rangers. We stopped at a table where a ranger was passing out booklets and had some things for kids to touch. She said there was a half-mile trail and both the kids were like, nah. Then she handed them a bag with tools in it (magnifying glasses, binoculars, scat identifier, animal identifier, and a thermometer) and said the kids could hike off trail. They were both super excited and we ended up hiking about 3/4 of a mile! They both loved the thermometer and liked checking the temperature of the water and the ground. Elise was thrilled when she realized the thermometer would go up to 80 degrees when she was holding it in her hand. Carter was really interested in the fact that the building used to be a ski lodge and one of the hills you could see where the ski run used to be. It was called suicide hill which fascinated Carter. He wanted to hike to the top of the ski run and I talked him into just going up partway. He sat on a log and looked through binoculars. After we turned the bag back in we watched ground squirrels running around on the rocks. Carter spent a long time earlier in the hike watching a squirrel pop it's head out of its burrow.

Their play migrated from the playground to the rocks for the last couple days of our stay.

Next up we drove on to Rock Cut and watched pikas on the rocks by the road before heading out on the Tundra Communities Trailhead. Elise walked a little bit up and then sat down and refused to walk any more. Ty told me to go ahead with Carter because I was more excited about seeing pikas than him. We only saw a couple and from further away than we did down at the road. But our whole hike you could hear them meeping all over the place. Carter made friends with a couple other boys and they chatted about Minecraft. He wanted to stay by them so we slowed down and walked with them. I laughed with the mom about it. We also saw a large group of elk just off to the side of the trail. When we got back down we watched the pikas by the road for a bit and then headed off to find a place for the Ty and the kids to have a picnic while I ran. We settled on the Deer Mountain Trailhead. I took off on my run and it was great. Then there was a sign and I followed the direction that said it was a summit. I ended up with 258 feet of climbing in just 0.6 miles and when I went back down, it was so steep I had to walk. I decided to head back and go the other direction which was a wise choice. It was a fun run with beautiful views and when I came back through, Ty and the kids were sitting on a huge rock finishing their picnic. Elise was so excited to see me and ran the last portion of my run with me.

We finally saw a pika close enough to get a decent picture, still not great.

Carter and his friends as we hiked.

My view during my 3 mile trail run.

We headed out of the park after lunch and went to ride the Mustang Mountain Coaster. A high school friend recommended it and told us where to get discounted tickets. It cost $20 for one ride but we got passes where we had unlimited rides for an hour for just $10! It was a lot of fun and I would have been fine with just a 3 ride pass. The first time I kept worrying I was going to hit Carter so I would pull on the brakes a bit. After that I held the bars down all the way the whole time. Carter rode on his own the first time and Elise rode with me (she wasn't tall enough to ride alone). She was laughing her head off and loving it. She kept yelling at me to go faster. The 2nd time Carter wanted to ride with Ty and he said it was terrible and it hurt. I told Ty he needed to ride with Elise because she was so much fun. She also said it hurt to ride with Ty so from then on, it was me with her. Carter and Ty both stopped at 4 rides but Elise wanted to keep going. She ended up riding it 6 times. We rode it right to the wire because we got the passes turned in about 4 minutes before the cutoff before we would have had to pay again. We bought the kids snow cones there and they were super excited that they got to add the syrup themselves. Elise said, "This is the best day of my life!"

From there we went back downtown to finish our pika hunt. We parked on the road near where 7 and 8 should have been. We had really struggled looking for them last time and found them much easier this time. I figured the struggle last time was likely more due to being tired and hungry. We needed to finish the hunt and get back to the visitor's center before 5:00 when it closed so we could get our buttons. We finished with plenty of time to spare. The man working in the visitor's center just gave us 2 pins, one for Carter and one for Elise. I really wanted one, but I wasn't going to say anything. Carter said, "Doesn't my mommy get one?" I was so thankful. Ty didn't want one when he offered them to both of us so he took pictures of us with our buttons. There were some that were pretty tricky to find. I was impressed with how good Elise and Carter were at spotting them. It rained most of the time we were doing the pika hunt. I wanted to check out Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory so we did that and then Ty needed to buy a new mattress for under his sleeping bag because his broke the night before and he woke up sleeping directly on the ground.

Pointing to the last pika which was super tricky, but he spotted!

Elise posing with one of the pikas she found.

That evening the kids and I hung out at the playground while Ty cooked a kilbasa meal in the dutch oven over the fire. Elise wanted to walk back to the campsite by herself at one point to get a drink. I walked with her past the bathroom and then watched her from there. I texted Ty so he could watch her from the campsite. She kept looking back to make sure I wasn't following her. When a car came, she stepped off the road and waited for it to go by. I was very proud of her. She felt like such a big girl walking by herself. She wanted to walk back to the playground by herself but at that point all the other kids had left so Carter wanted to go back to our campsite. Dinner was delicious. Ty took the kids to the playground while I went up and washed the dishes. As I was driving up to wash the dishes (the dutch oven was too heavy to carry that far), Elise ran alongside the car. It was so cute. Ty and I were remarking later how she was too tired to do a mile hike earlier in the day but was fine to walk and then run to and from the playground multiple times. That was a bit of a walk! I drove the car back down to the campsite and then walked up to meet them at the playground. As I was walking, I walked up on a mama mule deer with her baby and the baby was nursing. Someone was passing glow sticks out at the playgrounds so the kids put theirs through their crocs for the walk back. It was pretty funny! That night I slept hard and don't remember waking up at all. It was my best night of sleep during the trip.

The next morning the kids and I got up and I got ready to run. Ty got up shortly after. They broke down camp as I went for one last trail run in the mountains. I went to a trailhead out by the YMCA and ended up running on Glacier Creek Trail. It was beautiful and I was sad to leave that day. When I got back we all showered. The shower was 8 quarters for 6 minutes. I figured when 6 minutes was about up I'd add another quarter or 2 if I needed it because you could add a quarter for an additional 30 seconds. I forgot about it and the water turned off right as I was getting ready to rinse the conditioner out of my hair. Elise went to get Ty while I stood in the cold waiting. She brought me more quarters and I had to start a whole other 6 minutes just to rinse my hair. Elise thought it was pretty silly. We headed out after our showers. We stopped in Denver to see Ty's Uncle Marty and Aunt Brenda who were there visiting his cousin, Cortney. We were hoping she might be there because she works from home part of the time, but she had to go in to work that day. Then we met up with my some kind of cousin, Chris, and he brought his grandma, my mom's Aunt Leona. It was a nice visit and I wished we had more time. We drove until 10:00 that night to make it to Salina, KS. The next day I ran in the morning while the kids and Ty played games in the arcade area of the hotel and then we drove the rest of the way home. I got a migraine when we stopped for lunch and then I got a bloody nose when we got home. We were wondering if they were related to the drop back down from altitude. It was such a wonderful trip and it was hard to come back home to 100 degree weather! We're already talking about another trip to Colorado next summer, possibly Colorado Springs!