Ethan & Linda's National Parks Adventure: Big Horn Sheep and Denver

August 7 & 8, 2011

Sunday was a hot day in Englewood, CO...which is a suburb of Denver. Erik took us to the foothills where it was much cooler. We stopped at a lake to check it out, and talked with the people fishing. Ethan had his binoculars and was looking all through the mountains for big horn sheep, but found not a one! A couple told us about Guanella Pass not far from where we were. They said it was worth the drive with beautiful scenery and views. So, we headed up the winding road with NO guardrails--in some areas!! As we were traveling up through the pass, Ethan was talking about not seeing any big horn sheep in the mountains....we made a turn and what do you think was right in the road? You guessed it....6 or 7 big horn sheep. I think we took 19 pictures.

The views from the summit of the pass were spectacular. We were close to 12,000 feet elevation. There were hiking trails all through the mountains, and a lot of people were hiking. We never would have known about this pass if we hadn't stopped and talked with the people fishing.

On Monday, we took the train into Denver. Ethan wanted to take a tour through the United States Mint. We found the building and asked about the tours. Well.....all tours were full for the next 6 weeks. If we showed up the next morning at 7:30 a.m., we could get standby tickets, but there would be no guarantee that we would be able to get in for a tour.

We walked back to the place we came from and took the bus to the
Federal Reserve Bank. Finally found it, and went in to see about a tour. All we needed was our picture ID...not a problem....EXCEPT for the fact that we both left our ID in the car! So, no tour for us! We struck out on both tours!
All we could do was laugh!

We did get to tour the beautiful Capitol building. The was a quilt exhibit in the capitol building, which was wonderful. Since I am a quilter, I really enjoyed the exhibit and voted on the ones I liked best.

Although we didn't see what we wanted to, we had a great day. We went back to Erik's apt. and I cooked dinner....first time I've cooked in two months!

Some of the pictures of the Big Horn Sheep in Guanella Pass.