So I said to the wife, "Let's get up to the mountains during 4th of July weekend. We live in Denver, but we hardly ever get up there. I need to get away from the city, it might do you some good to get away from the computer for a while, what do you say?'
She said yes, so we embarked on our Sunday Drive (conveniently held on a Saturday, so that we had a day to recover.) Happy Birthday America!! It was a cool, mostly cloudy morning as we set out on the highway, looking for adventure. Normally, the summer "monsoon" season in Colorado starts in late July and runs through the first half of August, but this year it's been more like Seattle (or Rangoon) than Denver, with heavy rain and high humidity almost every afternoon since the second week of June. But I figure, we're starting out reasonably early and we're not going that far--just to Grand Lake and back--so hopefully we can avoid any serious rainstorms and still have time for a lovely picnic lunch in the mountains. It's going to be fun. Tracy is psyched, I am psyched. We're getting back to nature and we're going to get our Rocky Mountain High.
The first part of the trip goes smoothly. We get to Idaho Springs by 9:45 where we get more gas and then we're soon on US 40 headed up to Lake Granby and Grand Lake, with little traffic, Stevie Wonder in the CD player and mostly sunny skies. The only minor glitch is a little mini-traffic jam in Fraser due to an Independence Day parade. But this doesn't trouble us at all because the whole thing is such a Norman Rockwell-like pastiche of small town life: horses, fire trucks, little kids, U.S. flags, streamers and ice cream cones. Quaint!
I chose Grand Lake as our destination because 1) its one of the most beautiful places in Colorado and the entire United States and 2) it holds a special place in my heart and my memory from when I was growing up. I didn't spend a lot of time there when I was a teenager, but my Dad did have a time share cabin there and he took me there a few times over the summer for hiking, hanging out, horseshoes and just general sightseeing. I also went up there with friends like Zubin, Dave, his late wife Kim, Al and Anna. The cabin is gone, but why not share some of that with Tracy? The problem is, I was so excited about getting up there that I neglected to do my usual due diligence in trip planning--for instance, where exactly were those old cabins? Were there any special events going on up at Grand Lake that I should know about? Would there be anywhere to dine within a reasonable view of the lake? We got to the lake and it was beautiful (although the first gray clouds and sprinkles began to darken the early afternoon), but Grand Lake seemed to have doubled in population. It was teeming with people and cars and there was nowhere to drive, nowhere to park and nowhere to sit.
"Let's head on up into the park," I suggested, meaning Rocky Mountain National Park. "There's beautiful wildflowers there and we can go back to Grand Lake some other time when it is less crowded." Tracy was enthusiastic about this idea and since we were both getting hungry, we attacked the idea with gusto.
We paid our entrance fee to the park (I don't remember it being $20 before but aren't the glories of God and nature priceless?) and then we found an open picnic area which sat in a lovely, sun-drenched meadow, sprinkled with columbines and white, unrecognizable but still lovely little flowers. We took our picnic basket to the bench and dined on ham and salami sandwiches, potato chips, nectarines and juices. It was nearly perfect!
If only I had stopped there. Perhaps motivated by a desire to get our "money's worth" for our park fee and fooled by the patch of sunny sky over our picnic meadow, I suggested we drive a little way further into the park up U.S. 34 so that maybe we take a short little walk somewhere. For the first time, I sensed a little hesitation from Tracy, but she was game, so we continued up the highway with the full intention of turning around before the ascent up Trail Ridge Road, an arduous (but very beautiful) drive under the best of conditions, but white knuckle terror drive in bad weather. Of course, the skies were already starting to darken.
We each glanced at the park map that they give you when you enter the park and it looked like the Colorado River Trailhead might be a good place at which to park, walk a bit and then turn around for the drive back home. When I glanced over to the left side of the road, I noticed that the Colorado River Trailhead was falling behind me as I drove past it on the highway.
"Why aren't you turning around?" asked Tracy in her I'm-trying-not-to-make-you-feel-bad-but-that-was-really-stupid voice.
"There's oncoming traffic," I replied. "Besides, there's going to be a place to turn around up here before the road gets really steep and bad." Then I added the piece de resistance, "You should trust me."
These words would prove prophetic an hour later, as we dodged lightning bolts, hailstones, oncoming traffic and stampeding elk on top of one of the highest paved roads in the world...
PART 2 posted Tomorrow with pics!
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