KEYS...and Rocky Mountain National Park

To start off I must back track a bit.  As those of you that have been keeping up with this blog may remember over the 4th of July in Oregon we locked our keys in our car, luckily there was a phone nearby and AAA came to the rescue.  Fast forward to Yellowstone at about 8pm when I decide to go to bed but first needed to change clothes and yep it happened again, keys in car.  This time though there was no cell phone service and the camp host was no where to be found.  At this point Derek thought it might be successful to disassemble an umbrella (for a metal piece to stick down into the door).  Let's be honest people this was a fail.  Ashlin and I then walked around the campground looking for a coat hanger and when we found one I thought I might could jimmy it down into the car and push the unlock button.  Again, being honest, fail.  Now it is nearing 9:30pm and Derek notices the camp host is back.  Camp host calls ranger, ranger comes and shabam!  If that was the end of the "key" story I would not much have one but it goes on.  As we were driving home yesterday (a 3 day event as we have 1500 miles to cover) we realize that our friends Rachel and Brian have our house key and they are in PA.  Knowing Rachel, I thought, she just left it at their house and we will get it when we get home, fail, they had brought it to PA, ya know just in case they needed it (just kidding guys we love you).  Thats ok we say a couple of weeks back we had mailed our dear friend Andy a key so he could stay at our place.  Upon texting Andy we discover that said key never made it to his house, go figure the one piece of mail that really matters gets lost.  Ok, next option is my sister Kristen who has a key and lives in Atlanta, oh wait but she is in Boston right now.  We call her and she says she will go to a UPS store to next day air the key.  We start to get a little relieved and then get the call that UPS has taken out their last shipment and guess what folks today is Sunday.  So as we make our journey back to our house late tomorrow night (Monday) we will be calling locksmiths to help us get into our house, oh what an exciting adventure.  This folks is what memories are made out of!

OK, that was a side blog, now onto our last park of this trip Rocky Mountain National Park.  Like most things on this trip we did not plan on coming here but were oh so excited when we made the last minute decision.  We arrived via the west side around 7pm so we set up camp and then went to the ranger program about the Colorado River.  Turns out the start of the Colorado is at Rcky Mtn Ntl Park.  This fact made me sort of tingly and warm as if you can remember we started our trip off with a three day canoe trip down the Colorado in Utah and here we are on the last week of our trip at the beginning of it.  Cute I know.  During the ranger program we heard some coyotes howling which Ashlin thought was really neat.  The next morning we packed up quick as we were trying to get to the other side of the park to a campground with only 24 sites that were first come first serve only.  As most of you know between me and Derek I am the more anxious one.  Well, when it comes to getting a campsite Derek is on high alert and is not at rest until one is secured.  So, when we get to the campground and see a women leaving we hop on that site and now we can all relax.  After quickly setting up camp we get ready for our 8.5 mile hike to Chasm Lake.  At the end of the hike we were at an elevation of approximately 12,000 feet.   This is breathtaking, literally, most of you know the higher elevation you are at the harder it is to breath, and to give you a gauge Atlanta is at an elevation of about 1000 ft., Boston at 20.  After about 2 miles of hiking through forest the trail opened up to alpine meadows and huge views!  Ashlin was carried mostly until we got to snow and climbing, her two favorite things to hike in.  After spending some time taking in the beauty we started our way down.  We got back to camp, had a fire and some freeze dried food and hit the sack for our official last night of camping on this trip :(. 

Yesterday we made 586 miles and finally stopped in Topeka, Kansas.  Today our goal is roughly the same and it looks like we will stop about 100 miles north of Nashville and then the next day we are home.  We will continue to blog and post pictures in the coming weeks as there is so much we have not yet talked about.  Oh yeah we left our computer in Montana with Matt and Shel so that is why there have been no pictures the last two blogs.  Peace

Katie