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Published: June 24th 2007
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Lindsey and I got up and hung out at Jai's house for a relaxing morning. When we finally got our stuff together we headed for
Estes Park. Estes Park was a beautiful mountain town at
Rocky Mountain National Park. We went to the Visitor's Center when we got there to check out what the town had to offer. Lindsey found a brochure for an American Wilderness Tour so that we could REALLY see the Rockies, off the beaten path. Well that was an understatement. We got into the truck, which was HUGE, and proceeded to climb a mountain in it, don't ask me how we're still alive. This truck brought us up the mountain, WAY too close to the cliffs, and literally climbed boulders on it's way up there. For the first hour of the trip, Lindsey and I hung on for our lives! We stopped along the way at some interesting spots, learning about aspen trees,
Long's Peak, and much more. We finally got to the top of the mountain, which took us close to 2 hours to get to, and got out to climb a tower that was built in 1950. The stairs were creeky, but the view
on the top made everything else worth it. We could see
Denver and
Cheyenne off in the distance, as well as have a beautiful view of the Rocky Mountains. We came down off the mountain, once again clinging to the sides of the truck for our lives! When we got back to town, we headed out for dinner at a Mexican restaurant called the
Grumpy Gringo. We got into the car and made the 2 hour drive to Denver to stay with an only family friend,
Betsy Wolcott. I don't think that I had seen her since I was about 12 or so. Driving through the neighborhoods, I was worried that I wouldn't recognize her house, since I had not been there since I was about 10, but amazingly enough, I did! We went in and brought our things downstairs, only to find that her basement had flooded recently and she hadn't known! We tried to help her figure out where the water was coming from, but were unsuccessful. We brought our stuff back upstairs to another bedroom and hung out for a little while. We got into bed around 11 and grudgingly set the alarm for 5:30am so that
we could get up to leave in time for the
Slacker half-marathon and 4-miler in a small mountain town called
Georgetown. We drove down I-70 and saw the sign for
Red Rocks Ampitheater so had to make a quick stop there at 6:30 in the morning. There had been a show the night before and they were doing some major clean up to get ready for the show that night. There were cars parked all along the road heading up to the theater, clearly some people had too much of a good time the night before! We got back into the car and headed to the race. When we got there we were surprised by the cold weather. Georgetown is at an elevation of 8,500 feet and was completely in the shade when we arrived. We got on the yellow school bus that they used to take people up to the start line which was a little over 10,000 feet. Lindsey and I were very worried about how the altitude was going to effect our running, especially since we were huffing anf puffing after our little 2 minute warmup. The race itself was beautiful. We raced down the mountain next
to a river, basically the first 3 miles were all downhill. It was very cool. The last mile was killer, I even walked for the first time in a race! In the end, I got somewhere around 35 minutes, second in my age division again, and Lindsey got somewhere around 38 minutes. We hung out in the little town for a while afterwards, enjoying the free food, beer, and door prizes. We ended up making friends with some people who were originally from CT and after the race festivities we went out to lunch with them. Around 2 o'clock Lindsey and I got into the car and headed for
Arches National Park in
Moab, UT. The drive through the Rockies was beautiful. We drove through
Vail, which I was very excited to see... someday I will have to come when there is snow on the ground! We stopped in a little town called
Parachute, there was a sign on the outside wall of one of the stores that flashed the temperature every few seconds. I can't say that I was surprised to see it flash 103.3 degrees. It felt as though someone was constantly pointing a giant hairdryer on my
whole body when we were outside. We made it to Arches at about 7pm. Just in time to see the park and enjoy the sunset. The park was gorgeous, but I would have liked to spend more time there. We were both exhausted from the day of running, standing in the sun and heat, and driving. There looked like there would be some awesome camping and hiking there. Maybe on my next trip to Moab... We drove through the park and saw
Delicate Arch, the
Petrified Dunes, and a lot more. The sunset was amazing. It was exactly how I would have pictured a sunset in the southwest. We got to the hotel at about 10 and were very excited to have a shower. We hadn't showered in 3 days and had run the race that morning! Smelly girls! We're definitely taking this roughing it road trip seriously. Ha, can't you tell... with the hotels and all!? We don't have much planned for the next few days, except for the fact that we're going to be making our way to
Lake Tahoe and
Yosemite National Park.
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Sara
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arches ntl park was definitely one of my favorite places i went last summer-- delicate arch was incredible, im so glad you got to see it!!! moab's a cute little town. im so jealous youre in my part of the country ;) say hi to tahoe for me (and think of tahoe mike hahaha), and do some climbing in yosemite- also one of my favorite places ever. aaahhhh i want to come!!!!! ive been meaning to call u but have been so busy with work- but good busy. and i like work. i get paid to bike and climb and hike and paddle and go to six flags. muahahaha. yay for the west! have fun and i cant wait to hear more. love ya -s