A few hours, turned into a day's journey!

As many of you know, I am directionally challenged.  Being native to Colorado, you might think I would know my way around better than most.  Unfortunately my family has endured many journeys due to my lack of knowledge on the roads.  If it isn't 10 minutes from home, I'm bound to get lost.

Our journey began...I decided to take the girls over Trail Ridge Road thinking it would be a fun experience for a girls day out.  I started off by getting the directions needed to get us to Trail Ridge Road.  We enjoyed the views, listened to music, played roadside games, and had great conversation.  As we were going over the pass, we were able to view beautiful elk and moose.  We were also fortunate to see an eagle's nest.  Our packed lunch was perfect, and the abundance of water set off a beautiful sound in the background.  Everything seemed perfect...then we started to leave the park.  I didn't think about getting home, only about how to get there.  Rob has always gone with me, and I guess I have taken his keen ability to find his way around for granted.  I came out of the pass and realized I was not in Estes Park...not knowing what to do, I just followed the traffic.  This brought me to Granby.  I'm not prideful, so I called to get directions to Denver.  It was suggested that I either turn around or head toward Berthoud Pass.  So off I went heading for Berthoud Pass, but as I was approaching this destination, flashing lights explained that the pass was closed.  Now I started to get a little frantic.  I held my composure, singing with the girls, playing more roadside games, and thinking, "Where in the heck am I?"  Some men who were working on the road explained to me that I would have to go back to Granby, and then to Kremmling, in order to take highway nine; this would lead me to Denver.  Every word that came out of their mouths sounded foreign to me, but they made it sound easy enough.  Not wanting to look as if I had no clue, I headed toward Kremmling not knowing that it was located in no where’s land!  To make a very long story short, what started off as a few hour drive turned into a day's worth of driving.   As we started to see civilization that looked familiar (took 6 hours), Missy turned to me and said, "Mom, I think I have seen enough mountains to last me a lifetime!"  We laughed and are still laughing about how our three hour trip turned into an eight hour drive.  We were up in Aspen last weekend, and the kids preferred Rob to be at the wheel...I have no idea why!

Missy got a few shots:

Jessie running from a snowball!



The wildlife was beautiful.



Mountains, mountains, and more mountains-ugh!



More natural beauty, but no sign of civilization.