Coming down from a Rocky Mountain High!

I have little doubt many of you are familiar with the saying "what goes up, must come down". After spending the morning driving up the highest paved road in the US, it was only natural that we eventually made our way back down.

Someone asked in the comments the other day if you just drive up and drive back down and that's it. I'd have to say no, that isn't it. You can actually continue on Trail Ridge Road (Highway 34) and it takes you all the way across the Rockies and connects up with some other roads in western Colorado.

Since I was driving, I made the decision that we would only go as far as Alpine Lookout and then we would make our way back down the mountain stopping at a few locations on the way back. The view in the opening photo is from one of them. It's called Rainbow Curve and while not quite as high in altitude as some of the other spots, it still gives you a pretty spectacular view.

This is another view from Rainbow Curve and if you stop on your way up, it gives you a pretty good idea of what is in store for you as you continue along the Trail Ridge Road. As precarious as it was going up, I have to admit, the way down was a bit moreso.

I'm jumping ahead of myself a bit, but by the time we got back down to Estes Park, the brakes on my rental vehicle were screaming. I thought I was going to have to call the company and have them give me a different vehicle because I had permanently damaged this one. Fortunately, by the time we made it back to our AirBNB they had cooled down enough to be okay, but quite honestly, the car never drove the same after we took it up into the mountains.

While the drive up to Alpine Lookout takes you about 12,000 feet above sea level, Pike's Peak to the south of Denver takes you about 14,000 feet high. I have heard that they actually stop cars on the way down Pike's Peak and use a heat gun to see how hot their brakes are. If you are above a certain temp they will make you pull over until they cool down before they let you continue.

That wasn't the case here on Trail Ridge Road, but perhaps it should have been!

I forgot to mention in my other post that as we made our way to about the 13,000 feet mark we came across a older gentleman riding his bicycle up the mountain. I know they do that kind of stuff in the Tour De France all the time, but holy cow, that's a big no thank you from me!

We got very lucky that the weather cleared up as much as it did. I was going to be really disappointed if I got us up into the mountains and it ended up being so foggy or cloudy that you couldn't see anything. I've had that happen in the past down in Tennessee and it isn't cool!

That second photo above is probably one of my favorite photos that @mrsbozz took on the drive. There is something about that small lake in the middle of the mountain peaks that I just find fascinating. As I said in my post yesterday, if I were much younger I would love to try and hike to that lake.

I wonder how cold the water is. Actually, that same question got me in a bit of trouble as you will soon find out.

I didn't notice it on the way up, but on the way back down I caught sight of this cool waterfall coming down the side of the mountain. I didn't have any traffic behind me, so I slowed down really slow to have my wife take a photo of it.

Another stop on our way down was a location called Hidden Valley. We didn't find any ranch dressing there, but we did find some more amazing views. They have a ranger station there with a small area for what they call Junior Ranger Camp. How cool would it be to live close enough that you could spend your days in the mountains at camp?

Just a few steps past the ranger station was this small bridge that runs over a creek (called Hidden Valley Creek) that comes down from the mountains. There was quite a bit of traffic in the area, but I wanted to get some photos anyway. There was also a pretty decent trail system that might have been cool to explore if we had more time.

Down at this level the wind wasn't quite as bad as it had been up near the top of our drive.

Unfortunately, this is the point where my own stupidity kicked in. I wanted to see how cold the water was flowing down out of the mountains, so I went down to the edge of the creek to dip my hand into it. I stepped on a rock to get a better angle at the water and my foot slipped. To keep from falling into the creek, I had to put my right foot ankle deep in the water.

I was pretty embarrassed when I got back to the car and with a soggy foot I had to make the long drive back to our rental house.

By the time we got back to the house our nieces were awake and we were all hungry for some lunch. We decided to try out this chain that has several locations throughout the US. Unfortunately, they don't have any in my home state of Michigan.

The place is called Cava and if I had to describe it, I would say it was basically like a Mediterranean version of Qdoba or Chipotle.

I got the Steak Mezze Salad which you see in the first of the three photos above. It has steak, feta, corn, tzatziki, red pepper hummus, pickled onions, arugula, spinach, and a greek vinaigrette. I wasn't sure how all the flavors were going to mix together, but holy cow, it was freaking amazing.

I've had hummus as something to dip my veggies in, but I have never had it as an actual component to a dish like this. You're going to laugh at me since this place is a chain, but it was seriously one of the best meals we had on our whole trip. It absolutely blew my mind and I can't wait until I am in a location that has one close.

I've heard of people going on the Mediterranean diet before and if it's anything like this, I could totally live with that. I encourage you to click the link above and check out their menu. Just don't do it on an empty stomach.

@mrsbozz did a build your own bowl that you see in the blurry photo above (my fault, not hers). If you look at the site though, it was basically the Harissa Avocado bowl with a few changes.

It's hard to believe, but by this point we were about halfway through our trip. The time was going by so quickly, but softball hadn't even started yet and we still had a lot of excitement ahead of us!

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