Day 40

 July 26 - Rocky Mountain National Park, CO

It was my birthday today. Everyone was so nice to me today, from the moment I woke until when I laid down to sleep. Cassandra worked to make sure it was a great day, and the kids greeted me with the most coziest "Happy birthday" when I popped my head in the camper to check on them in the morning. I felt so much care and love and all day long. Cassandra and I decided Tilda deserved to go on a pony ride at least once on this trip (Ev had that ride in the Tetons, too). 

We decided that I would take Tilda for the pony ride while Cassandra made breakfast. I thought it would be a wrangler-led ride, but they gave me to pony to guide along the trail on a loop that took us about 45 minutes or so. Tilda chose a cute, chubby black pony named Poptart.

It was a beautiful trail along the Fall River near the northern entrance to the park. 

Tilda was so excited and she had so much fun. It was a perfect way to start my birthday.

 Cassandra made eggs and bacon and we ate bagels again from Steamboat Springs. After, we slowly prepared things for a hike. The kids were with it, but sluggish - I think yesterday took a lot out of all of us, and it is certainly tougher doing anything out here at the higher elevation.

We hiked the Cub Lake Trail that is accessible from the Moraine Park campground.

It was a fun, challenging, rocky hike that was impacted in some places by the 2020 wildfire (a bunch of tree-cover was lost and the area contained more meadowland).

We love climbing over crags and boulders! We saw a good family grazing while the mother goose was standing on a rock overlooking the situation, keeping an eye over her feeding babies.

We lunched under and ponderosa pine grove (twice: on our way our for a snack, and then on the way back for a formal lunch). Cassandra packed a special lunch of meats and cheese with Trisuits. It was a fancy lunch...

 

...and an absolutely beautiful hike.

After, we went to the Visitor Center (all of us wiped from the hike - the kids asked to turn around a couple times on this hike, which was unusual) and watched a video about the Rockies, and the kids got their Junior Ranger badges. They had a great park ranger who swore them in and ad-libbed in all the right ways to appeal to both children.

We went back to the campsite - Ev and Til immediately to the rocks) and eventually made a fire for dinner (another whole chicken over the fire!). We all felt so much at home and comfortable in this place. This is such a special place to be. I felt such gratitude that we factored the Rocky Mountains into our trip at all (it wasn't in our initial plans…). It was rough getting here at times, but it had provided amazing recompense for our labors.

Cassandra made brownies for dessert and they were so wonderfully gooey and delicious! It was the best baked treat we've had on the trip so far. She is such an amazing person and made this day into such memorable birthday experience.

We finished the night cleaning up camp a bit so that we could get out early tomorrow. We hope to be on the road by 6am so that we can get in 580 miles into eastern Nebraska. We are taking a huge jump eastward and are ready for it!