Bad planning saved by good luck

©2015 Lydia Hinshaw

Looking down on the visitors' center from 12,000 feet

There's always a line for the rest rooms

 ESTES PARK, CO -- We left West Glacier Wednesday and arrived here Friday afternoon, having thrown caution to the winds on the matter of getting a campsite in a popular national park on a September weekend.

 It was where we wanted to go, and on our way to where we're headed next, so we trusted our luck.  We arrived to "full" signs on all Rocky Mountain National Park campgrounds, and a forest of "no vacancy" signs on motels, not that we could afford Estes Park prices anyway.

 We didn't know until we noticed all the men wandering in kilts that there was a big highland festival going on all weekend.

 And I of all people should have known to check the football schedules.  Sure enough, Colorado, Colorado State and Air Force had home games Saturday, and the Denver Broncos had a home date Sunday.

 There was no sense in leaving Estes Park to look for accommodations along I-25.

 We found a city-owned campground that had one site available for one night.  That solved Friday's immediate problem.  We checked the next morning and found someone had canceled a reservation and we could get a different site for Saturday and Sunday.  Saved!

 With that we were off up Trail Ridge Road in the park, to the highest visitor center in the National Park system, at something over 11,000 feet, with a short but steep hike you can take to 12,000 feet.

 The day was perfect, sunny and 54 degrees with an 8 mph wind.  On two previous visits to the Alpine Visitor Center,  conditions have been quite uncomfortable, with temperatures in the 40s and wind howling at 20 mph over snow fields.

 There was hardly any snowfall here last winter, and therefore no snow around the visitor center now.  The visitors' center, the next-door gift shop and snack bar, and the rest rooms were crowded.

 The six, individual, unisex toilets had lines the entire time we were there.  It was a good idea to join this line even if you didn't feel the need, because you probably would feel the need by the time you reached the front of the line.

 Back down the hill, we found we didn't much like our second campsite, wedged as it was between two large, noisy families, with an overhanging tree that brushed the top of the Magic Bus.

 Sunday morning we checked again and were able to get a better spot, it being Sunday and normal folk headed back to work and school.

 Monday we begin the long cross-country trek home.  We are leaving the west about three weeks earlier than usual, to attend a family get-together in North Carolina next weekend.

 It feels too early for the summer to be over.