Today was almost like two separate days; hence, the title "bookends." In the morning, I woke at 6:30 AM to frost on the windshield and 34 degrees. I was still in Timber Creek campground in Rocky Mountain National Park in northeastern CO. By night's end, the temperature had reached 94 degrees and I found myself at Dinosaur National Monument in northwestern CO over 250 miles away.
First, the morning. I left camp by 7 AM and drove back into the higher altitudes of Rocky Mountain NP along Trail Ridge Road, stopping at Lake Irene, Milner Pass (where the Continental Divide occurs), the Alpine Visitor Center at an elevation of 11,796 ft, Medicine Bow Curve, and Poudre Lake.
I then drove south along Highway 34 through the Kawuneeche Valley portion of the park, seeing four elk and two moose along the way until I entered the town of Grand Lake. Here, I took a short hike to see Adams Falls before continuing my drive along the western edge of Lake Granby and then west on US 40 toward Steamboat Springs, CO.
Much of the middle of my day looked like this, as I drove seemingly forever on 40W before arriving at Dinosaur National Monument. .
When we were at Dinosaur NM in 2010, it was a big "dud." We drove all the way out in the middle of nowhere to find that it was closed for renovations. Well, this time was not a dud! The renovations are complete and I was simply blown away by the Quarry Exhibit Hall, where you can see fossils of various types of dinosaurs from the Jurassic Period partially excavated in an air-conditioned exhibit hall.
In addition to its famous dinosaur fossils, many of which wound up in the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh (mental note to visit on the drive home), Dinosaur NM is renowned for its Fremont Indian petroglyphs and its incredible scenery. Dinosaur was most definitely not a dud this time around!
Fabulous!
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