Day 3

Have you been to Estes Park? My family has visited since as long as I can remember, and during college, I worked there for three summers at a restaurant and inn, and I love the place. It is without doubt a tourist town in every way, but somehow, that makes it less intimidating and more comfortable. You do not have to be cool in Estes Park. Basically, Estes exists because it celebrates Rocky Mountain National Park. Carter and I went into the park Friday morning for our big hike (after our room service breakfast and french press coffee of course).

Aspens are my favorite. Their leaves shimmer. Did you know that they're considered the largest organism in North America b/c groves of seemingly individual trees are actually all interconnected at the roots. Hub knows this already because I like to recite this fact at regular intervals when we're in Colorado. I don't think it diminishes the awesomeness of the Aspens.

(Sorry about the sideways picture. I can't be bothered.) We thought we were hiking to Fern Falls and Fern Lake.

We went to Cub Lake instead. We didn't see any cubs, but we did see a snake on the way up.

And ducklings with their aggressively hungry mom duck. I had to wave my boot at her to get her off our sunning/picnicing rock. She was in my face. When we were hiking back out and almost to our car, we saw a coyote in the path. I'll admit that I was scared, but here's why. I grew up in Palestine. I've been in the woods, and it is not normal for a wild animal to just stand there and nonchalantly stare you down. Wild animals run away when you come up on them. An animal just standing there probably has some issue you don't know about: rabies, injury, babies nearby. Sumpin. I clapped my hands at it and told Carter to stop walking towards it, but he doesn't submit to bullying easily. I thought about Haley Mills in The Parent Trap when she gets her potential stepmother to bang those sticks together to scare the bears. I was just clapping and telling it to get out of here. The coyote finally ran away. Then Carter and I argued for a good five minutes whether it was a fox or a wolf. We compromised--coyote it is.

We had nacho's at Ed's Cantina, which makes me laugh b/c although Ed's has good drinks, their food has not always been my favorite Mexican food in the world. I mean really, it's in Colorado.

I used hang out at Ed's in my Estes Park hey day. Carter likes to hang out with the townies--not really.

That night we ate (I told you we were fatties on this trip) at Poppy's on the Big Thompson River, and long story short, Carter started talking beer with the owner who is apparently quite the beer-o-phile, and he sent us home with a really great bottle (and some Prosecco for me). Then we wandered around downtown and went to my favorite paper store and shared a caramel apple on a bench on the street.