Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Rocky Mountain National Park


Look at the sign! Don't look at me!!! Can you imagine how bloated I feel if this is how I look? Eeeeeek! Anyway, we had fun traveling through Estes Park and up to the Rockies yesterday. It happens to be Elk rutting season, which is supposed to be "something to see". Basically, what we saw was a lot of Elk cows grazing with a few lone Elk bulls wandering around the meadows. I thought it was cool.

However, you all know I have stuff to complain about - it is my nature. The rules at the park during Elk season are to stay in or near your car when you pull to the side of the road, don't go into certain meadows on foot, and stay at a distance from the Elk - not only for human safety reasons but so that us humans don't actually interfere in their reproductive trends. Let them mate, dammit! Well, boy were people out of their cars (which is fine), and into the meadows (not fine), and right on top of the Elk - I mean just a few feet away (so not fine that I almost wanted to call the rangers!). People are awful. We actually watched one guy with a big camera approach a huge male...um, during mating season. Genius. I was getting all upset about it. In any event, we didn't hike much because I am getting kind of uncomfortable and was trying to take it easy, but had a great time driving around. So wish that we could have really seen some of the beautiful trails and really gotten a good hike in, but I'll take what I can get. Anyway, here are some pics of Elk and stuff, taken from the car or right on the side of the road, next to the car. Enjoy!!!
And, here is a male deer laying on the side of the road where we stopped to take the "Rocky Mountain National Park" sign picture. Do you think these guys are used to humans or what? there was at least 4 female deer standing around about 6 feet from our car, one fawn, and a male laying around. Amazing. Bet all you New York hunters are jealous, huh?

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