Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - Loveland VIC; Trail Along the Big Thompson River; Driving to Estes Park

Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - Loveland VIC;  Trail Along the Big Thompson River; Driving to Estes Park

We did quite a bit of sightseeing today, starting at the Loveland Visitor Information Center where a very nice lady assisted and provided us with information.  We picked up guides to Rocky Mountain National Park, Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park.  They are small but packed with some great information and a nice map.

The VIC is a beautifully landscaped.  

You will see "hearts" around town like this one

You will see lavendar plants in many areas of town.

Loveland is known for their sculpture art and you can find it in many places around town...even in individual yards.  Just outside of the VIC is a small sculpture park around a small pond, so we took a quick walk around it.  Here are a few pictures:

There are hundreds of locked keys with notes written on them attached to the large LOVE sign.  It can be seen from nearby Hwy 24.

This was an interesting sculpture with explanation.

Hopefully you can read the center plaque for more information.

Everyone driving by the VIC can see this large LOVE sign.

From there we drove to Old Town Loveland, but we were not that impressed.  We aren't in to visiting many stores (unless we have a specific need) and eating is okay, but we are really trying to stick to our budget.  There are other places we want to focus our funds this month so we are eating at Bentley or bringing it with us for now.  Centennial Park wasn't too far from there.  It is adjacent to the Big Thompson River which comes down the mountains and flows into Loveland.  It wasn't anything special but it has a really nice walking/biking trail adjacent to a very nice park.

Interesting information about monarch butterflies.  I would love to have a butterfly garden someday.

This is the walkway along the Big Thompson River.  We enjoyed the walk, but much of the path was blocked by vegetation.  

After stopping at Bentley to eat lunch we decided to drive over to Estes Park for the rest of the day.  What a beautiful view we had as we took Hwy 34.  Not too far into the park the cliff type mountains rose high above us.  After a couple of turns, there was a place to pull off.  A couple on a motorcycle were parked in front of us.  I noticed the Missouri tag and asked where they were from.  Shawnee and Kansas City.  What a small world.  There were a couple of guys fishing there as well and it was fun watching them.

Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) is just beautiful.  I'm including a few of the many, many pictures I took here.  

The famous Stanley Hotel - it's interesting that we seem to be following things about Stephen King.  He based a novel on this hotel.  I've never read one of his books - not my type.  We saw his home in Bangor Maine, and visited their cemetery - another site he used in one of his books.

We stopped at the Fall River Visitor Center where we obtained information on places to visit, time frames for driving to certain locations, best places to see wildlife, etc.  For today we chose to drive Horseshoe Park Road to Alluval Fan (a water fall) on the way to Ypsilon Lake.  We decided we would hike to the waterfall since it was a short distance.  We could immediately tell we needed to get back to walking everyday.  As it ended up, we turned around before we reached it after meeting a couple who had never heard of it.  We thought we were in the wrong place, but after checking our map again, that was the trail, so we'll try it again when we return in several days.  We also decided we need to keep our hiking shoes and walking sticks in the truck for future outings.  We definitely will want them if we do any more hiking.

Dean headed up the Alluvah Falls trail.

Dean would really like to take a horesback ride through the mountains.  I've never had much luck being on a horse, but I might try it for him.

Beautiful vistas everywhere you turn.

We love these water pictures!

It was getting late, so we headed back to Bentley where we ate the rest of the taco salad I made last night.  

The sunset tonight wasn't quite as good as Monday's but it was still nice to look at.  We also went a bit further on the walking path this evening.  It feels good to get up and move.

As we walked along the trail near the lake - I loved the way the sun brightened these trees.

Taken while we were on the walking trail.

From our site.

Another beautiful day in Loveland, Colorado.  Thanks for following along.