Rocky Mountain Nation Park Alluvial Fan

We made it.

I'm sick. 

So, so sick. 

But we made it. 

First of all, here is what I learned from Kalynn on our 11th airplane flight together: powering down electronics does not include plugging in your baby's face, beads and pipe cleaners go a long way, stickers are hysterical when placed on the sleeping passenger next to us, and barf bags make the perfect "sleepy bags" for Cabbage Patch Kids. 

Monday was a long morning. Up at 4AM, flight took off at 6:45, landed at 10, signed the lease at noon. But we're in! 

I've had mountains on the brain the last few weeks, so having spent Tuesday checking out Rocky Mountain Nation Park, I got the perfect fix. 

One of my favorite parts of the park as a kid was always visiting the alluvial fan. In July of 1982, the year I originally moved to Colorado, the Lawn Lake Damn broke and suddenly released 220 million gallons of water on the town of Estes Park. It caused a flash flood that killed 3 people and left $31 million in damages. Clearly, this was not the reason I loved it so much. However, as a kid, seeing the magical waterfall that it left behind was pretty memorable, so I wanted Kalynn to check it out. 

Here she is on the hike with her little Camel Back backpack.

I could only get the very bottom of the waterfall in the background.

Next we drove the winding road up this beast of a mountain almost 12,000 ft in elevation:

And saw some elk along the way

The view once we got up top was enough to take your breath away. Literally. The amount of effort it requires to take a breath when you're that high up, didn't do well for my congestion or my ears, but it was gorgeous. Absolutely humbling. 

The higher in elevation you go, the trees have lesser capability of growing simply because of cold temperatures and lack of moisture and oxygen. So when we passed tree line, we knew it was cold. And in addition to the cold itself, the sides of all the timber were unable to grow branches because of the hard wind. Cold, cold, f*ing cold.

So that's what we've done so far. More pictures of our journey soon to come. Thanks for all the love and support on this new chapter of our lives!