My wife and I landed at the Denver Airport for our vacation. It was the last week of September 1999 and it was raining...hard. We thought that (at least the first day of) our vacation was lost until the agent at the car rental asked an odd question:
"Will you be driving up to the mountains?"
I say "odd" because: what else do you do on vacation in Denver? I gave her a kinda blank look...our actual plan had been to drive south to Colorado Springs and do some camping in the foothills.
"I only ask because if you plan to drive in the mountains, I can offer you a free upgrade...it's snowing up there."
I accepted the upgrade, because the last thing I wanted to do was drive a Ford Focus in 10" of snow...especially since I'd never driven on snow before. Having grown up in Dallas (where they roll up he streets and close everything down when it snows), I was ill-prepared to drive up the mountain in the snow...a wider wheel-base was much appreciated.
We threw all of our gear in the trunk of a Buick Regal and hopped on the toll road heading north and west...by the time we got to Boulder, the rain had turned to snow. Once we got to Estes Park (and the east entrance to RMNP) the snow was falling in a quiet storm.
My wife (who grew up in Houston) had never seen snow accumulate before. I had never seen more than a few inches. We drove up into the park until the road was closed (the Rainbow Curve) and stopped all along the way to take pictures, build tiny snowmen on a picnic table, and watch the elk. I saw more wildlife that day than in almost thirty years of camping vacations in Texas.
We fell in love with RMNP...we refer to it as our "happy place" and now that we live in Denver, we get up there quite often.
Sometimes, we drive the Old Fall River Road up to the Alpine Visitors Center. Or hike around the boulders in the Lawn Lake Alluvial Fan area. There's a lot of easy hiking that our three-year-old can do...and some more strenuous fare, like the Long's Peak summit (the only 14er in the park). There's a snow play area in Hidden Valley and elk, moose, marmots, chipmunks and lots of other wildlife everywhere.
