Knowing that we would be in Loveland for a week, Paul and I got busy on Amazon, ordering things we “need”. More coffee, some gadgets, and my favorite, an adaptor for the TV so Paul can listen to it through his Hearphones (a pretty cool Bose product- not quite hearing aids, but close), and now, woohoo, I don’t have to hear it anymore.
I am not much of a TV watcher-
although, we have now watched two movies together- The Big Short (eh, not great) and Knives Out, which was good. We have a few more on the list of movies that I will actually watch- The Green Book and A Man called Ove (I read the book and liked it). In fact, we even bought popcorn when we went shopping, so we’ll have it.
Having a week in one spot also means we don’t have to run around trying to do everything we want, all in one day. We have had quite a few “down” days, recovering from the hikes we have done. We usually start each morning doing the Microsoft Solitaire Daily Challenge while we have our coffee.
Every time I see that the pool is empty, I feel compelled to swim some laps, and have spent several hours doing just that.
About every 8-10 days we are forced to go to the store and buy food, so we spent one afternoon at Costco and Safeway, stocking up.
On the fun side of things, we found out some friends are also in town, so we met up with them and went to dinner at a brewhouse, where we could sit outside. Tom and MJ met when they were both fulltimers, and now have a house in Yuma and escape in the summer, like we do.
Somehow we have not managed to escape the heat completely, and even here in the Denver area it’s been in the 90s almost every day.
We have managed to do some hiking, partly by heading up into the mountains where it’s cooler, and by starting early in the day. Ok, we don’t really start early in the day, we just suck it up and get hot while we hike. Our first trail was in Button Dam Preserve. Hiking up the road to the dam was easy and we found a nice quiet spot for a snack.
Watching the water come through the dam was pretty cool.
We took the harder way back, going up and over a hill, where the trail was pretty steep and technical in some places.
5 miles total and 640 ft of gain.
As soon as we arrived in Loveland I checked Rocky Mountain National Park, to see if we would be able to get in. They have a timed entry system right now. Everyone has to make a reservation online, and only so many cars are allowed entry during each two hour window.
Reservations opened a couple of months ago. They did however, hold back some spots, so every day at 8 am some spots open for two days in the future. I missed the first time I tried, but the second time I was able to get entry tickets for 8-10 am on Friday, so off we went.
I had chosen a 5 mile hike to Mills Lake- and it seemed like everyone in the park also chose that hike. We started the hike stressed because we had no intention of taking a shuttle, but our truck is too big and isn’t allowed in the parking lots, so we had no choice if we wanted to hike.
It was ok….half capacity made it better.
Once on the trail, our stress did not reduce. It was overloaded with people to the point where we had to pretty much keep our masks on. We didn't even stop to look at the waterfall- too many people between it and us.
We found a less used path and took it, giving up the idea of the lake.
It did lead to a nice creek, with no people near it.
The way back was much less crowded, and more relaxing, but it was a sharp reminder that we need to steer clear of crowded places.
As much as I complain about the heat, we were reminded last week exactly why we leave Havasu every summer....
