Miles traveled: N/A
States: 1 (Colorado)
Camp: Aspenglen Campground, Rocky Mountain National Park

What an amazing day. What an amazing place. It’s almost hard to believe there can be places this beautiful. I think sometimes I see images from overseas and forget that there are amazing locations and beautiful landscapes here in the US, too.

When I set up camp the night before, I set alarms for 9:00, 9:15, and 9:30, knowing that I had to be checked out of my site by noon. I never needed them, though, as I woke up at 7:30. It’s such a treat to be able to look out your tent screen and see an incredible mountain scene. It only got better after that, as I saw an elk wander just across the road from my campsite.

Wanting to make the most of my day, I quickly packed up camp and got on my way. I had barely made it out of the campground before I saw a beautiful cascading stream. I spent almost an hour there taking photos. It gave me a great opportunity to experiment with long exposures, and I really like the results.

From there I moved on to Sprague Lake. I can’t say enough nice things about this area. It was stunningly beautiful and had a very nice walking trail around it. People were all around, taking in the sights. I had a few friendly conversations with other walkers as I made my way down the path. After walking the path around the lake, I found a different one through the woods along a stream and walked that for a mile or so.

Later in the day I decided to do some fishing near the visitors center in town. I didn’t catch anything, and in fact only had one bite. As usual, though, the scenery was great. I even saw a few elk wandering along the fairway at the nearby golf course.

When I got back to camp from fishing, it started to rain, which killed my fire almost before it started. Rather than try to rebuild the fire and cook in the rain, I decided to go to town. I had dinner at Ed’s Cantina and Grill, where at one point two men in ghillie suits ran through, pretty much scaring the life out of another group of diners.

After dinner I went back to camp, took a few photos, and called it a night.

Expect plenty of pictures after this post.