Colorado -Day 4 - going our separate ways

We split up Tuesday morning.  Poppy, Uncle Philip and all the kids headed to the Rocky Mountain National Park.  They wanted to hike around Bear Lake.  It was a beautiful visit, as you can see.

There was still a bunch of snow on the ground!

Mamaw, Aunt April and I "went to town", as my grandmother would have said.  We walked and shopped around downtown Estes Park.  It is a great downtown area, with lots of cute shops and restaurants.  But everything is overpriced, which is typical of a tourist town.  We did find one really cool store where they had music memoribilia.  I was able to finally replace Gabriel's Beatles toothbrush mug that he broke last year with a new Yellow Submarine one.  And I bought a new pencil drawing of the Fab Four.  I love our Beatles bathroom!

This is the only picture I have from our downtown visit.  The Fall River winds around right through downtown, so that rushing water sound is never very far away.  We had lunch in a brand new sandwich shop.  It was a fun day.

After a rest time in the afternoon, we hiked up "our" mountain again.  I love how the weather changes so quickly in the mountains.  The light is never the same five minutes after you look at a view.  

Show me your muscles!

Later in the early evening, we decided to walk along the river for awhile.  But Cade's leg was still hurting him so we headed back.  The kids always flocked to the playground that was on the grounds of our cabins.  They even had a shuffleboard court!   We ordered dinner and the boys went to pick it up.  We were all really tired from all of our sightseeing.  

I fell in love with the tree below.  A gigantic blue spruce in the middle of the grounds that was breathtaking.

I thought I'd throw in a couple of Joel-isms that we picked up on during this trip.  We splurged on groceries and bought a little more junk food than we normally would, so one of his favorite things to shout out was, "I love burritos!!!" which meant Doritos.  He figured out the weird animal we showed him was an "underdillo".  And one time in the car he couldn't get out when we arrived at our destination because his foot was "sprinkling"  (had fallen asleep). Love that kid and the way his brain works!