Rocky Mountain indeed! (09/02/03)

Last updated 9/29/03

Wow, what an amazing thing... I'm actually updating something that happened this month... Hopefully on our European trip and beyond we won't fall so behind on blogging (it can seem a daunting task to get caught up again when you're over a month and a half behind).

After Omaha, the next stop on our little road-trip was Denver, where Daria's friend Barbara, who served as a maid of honor at our wedding, currently lives. About 30 miles from Denver you can find the Rocky Mountains National Park, and we were keen on getting some more hiking done, so we decided to stop by and take a gander. We decided to hike to the summit of Deer Mountain, and it was well worth the effort. We got to see a bunch of deer during our hike... it started when I saw a single deer and pointed it out to Daria. Soon a few others also came into view making for a thoroughly wonderful deer-watching experience. Soon after we reached the summit it started raining and continued doing so for most of our hike down the mountain. Luckily we had disposable rain ponchos, which are well worth the 2 bucks or so you'll spend on them (much more convenient for hiking than trying to shield yourself with an umbrella). When we got down to the car we were hungry for lunch, and decided to have our "hearty lentil soup", which came in one of those plastic air-tight containers that you simple add hot water to (kinda like Cup O Noodle soups). Daria had read somewhere that at high elevations if you take an air-tight food package like potato-chip, they'll probably explode in some manner. We confirmed this when Daria opened the lentil container (which had bulged outward quite a bit in comparison to the state in which we bought it) and showered herself with powdered lentil soup mix. A word to the wise: be careful with that stuff if you're in the mountains, or you too could be covered with powdered soup mix of some sort...

Pictures

Severe beauty of the Rocky Mountains...

Deer at the Deer Mountain

At the summit