2017 Western Trip - Last Day

Our 2017 Western Trip has come to an end (the photo above is from yesterday).  We spent this last day on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountain National Park on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. Even though the highway through the park was closed and the temperatures hovered in the 40s and 50s depending on the altitude and precipitation was predicted, this did not stop hundreds of folk from flocking to the park. The place was crowded.

Fortunately this was the first day of the park shuttle buses, which meant we could leave our car at the park-and-ride and hop on the bus to take us to the main attractions without having to fight for a parking place at each one. We chose to ride up to Bear Lake where there was a half-mile trail around the lake which we hoped to hike. This was not to be.  The 2 feet of snow just over a week ago had left icy drifts on the trail, which made walking just too treacherous. Instead, we rode back down to the Glacier Gorge trail head where we could walk toward Alberta Falls on a trail with less icy snow. Aside from a few flakes of snow falling at the higher levels, we avoided the threatened weather, and counted our visit to the east side of the park at least a qualified success.

Instead of taking another Viking Cruise for 2017, we planned this trip to be our major outing for 2017, to see some more of our beautiful country. In 2015 we were able to see many of the national parks of the Southwest - the Grand Canyon, Arches, Canyonlands, Capital Reef, Escalante, Natural Bridges and Zion. Now in 2017, so far we have added the Great Sand Dunes, the Valles Caldera, White Sands, Carlsbad Caverns, Guadalupe Mountains, Pecos Historical Park and Rocky Mountain.

This started with the 100th anniversary of the National Park System, but now, with the present political climate, we're hoping to see as many national parks as possible before budget cuts or relaxed environmental regulations weaken the National Park System or spoil the natural beauty of these places.

In a few days we will have the many photos of this trip in Shutterfly albums and we'll send the links to you.  In addition, I've captured some of this trip with video.  Once I have a chance to edit the output, I'll post it to Vimeo and send along that link.

We hope you have enjoyed taking this trip with us!