Email written by GTG to our parents.

We survived the 14 hour car ride (I actually helped with the driving quite a bit…I didn’t sit and read the entire time)…along with going to the wrong hotel and not knowing where our reservations were. (For the record, I told Chris I thought they were at a Travel Lodge, but he insisted on Budget Inn.) It was a minor setback…just delayed our dinner. We ate at a nice little place downtown called Ed’s Cantina. We sat out on the patio surrounded by huge mountains and overlooking the Big Thompson River which runs through town. The meal was excellent, as was the fried ice cream we had for dessert.

We woke up early this morning and are getting ready to head to the KOA to drop off our bikes to try to get rid of the extra weight so that we don’t get stuck trying to go up some mountain road. I’d forgotten how much I missed the mornings out here. Beautiful doesn’t even begin to describe them. Chris keeps crooning John Denver to me. It was funny the first time.

Still, we haven’t killed each other, or worse, called off the wedding. We’re hiking today…going out to one of the waterfalls out here, then we’re going geocaching. (For mom and dad, that’s the yellow thing I got Chris for Christmas. We’re going to certain coordinates where there will be little treasures that people have left.) Then we’re heading into the park.

So far we haven’t seen any bighorn sheep, Mom, but we’ll be looking. We did see an elk and her calf cross the street. She was considerate enough to use the crosswalk, but didn’t wait for the signal. I’m sure we’ll see more today.

Anyway, off to hike…