Lauren's Blog: Colorado Adventure: Days 7 and 8

A. Estes Park B. Rocky Mountain National Park C. Ouray

D. Payson

Day 7

On day 7 we woke up in Ouray. It was absolutely beautiful and definitely one of my favorite places in Colorado. We stayed at the Hot Springs Inn and I would definitely recommend it. It was clean and attractive. I think every room also had a balcony/porch with a view of the Uncompahgre River like ours did.

For our day in Ouray, Bill and I decided to explore the various sites. The first place we went was the Lower Cascade Falls.

The stream below the falls.

Ouray has some really cool coloration in the rock.

More Aliens!!

It's a secret message.

The falls.

The photographer at work.

After Lower Cascade Falls, we went to another popular waterfall in town, Box Canyon Falls. On our way, we stopped here:

This area is apparently the Ouray Ice Park in winter. You can learn more about it on their website.

I was standing on this overhang while I was taking pictures. It was a little scary! Also, those are my new Vibrams.

I'm not sure what this building is, but it looked pretty interesting.

After looking a the Ouray Ice Park, we pulled into the Box Canyon Falls parking lot. (Ouray is so pretty that I'm taking pictures of a parking lot lol)

So, the walk to the falls is a bit scary.

The view of the area below the falls.

The canyon above.

The falls. It's hard to really appreciate it in this picture, but I took video of it that you'll be able to watch below.

We climbed all the way down these wet, slippery stairs to get to ground level at the falls.

I'm not sure what this is. I think it was left by the miners.

Yep.

The view out of the slot canyon.

The waterfall is behind this rock.

Just some random trees growing on a ledge.

After visiting the waterfalls, it was time for Bill's favorite part:

We went driving in the FJ in an area called Yankee Boy Basin. I slept most of the way there and didn't wake up until we were already above the tree line.

Bill in his natural element.

The road we were driving on. Look how pretty this is!

A really cool old mill building along the road.

A double set of waterfalls.

I thought this log was pretty cool.

There were wildflowers everywhere. I was going crazy taking pictures.

Some ruins by the waterfall. I'm not sure what they used to be.

This butterfly was posing for me.

A pretty glacier melt-off stream.

The stream by the road on the way back to town.

This is a compilation I made of the video clips I took during our day in Ouray. This song was another one that we heard quite a few times while driving around Colorado. Make sure to change the settings to HD if you're viewing it fullscreen.

That night, we ate at O'Briens pub for a second night. We had found it the night before because it seemed to be the the place in town to be. Once we ate there, we knew why! They had great stew, fish n' chips, shepherd's pie, and the Guinness was amazing ( I think it was the altitude). The first night, they had a live band. The second night, Bill and I ate out on the patio in the beautiful weather.

Day 8

This was our last day in Colorado. We decided to go rafting, which was the one thing I really wanted to do before I left Colorado. All of our rafting pictures were taken by Bill since he has a waterproof camera.

Suiting up. They provided us with rain jackets.

Getting started down the river. My hat was in the way so I decided to flip it up lol.

This was before I got too soaked. Our rafting trip wasn't too rough since the water was rather low, but it was definitely fun. I only fell out once and Bill was able to pull me back in with his long arms.

Some video that Bill shot while we were going down the river. He was holding the camera along with his paddle, so the camera feels like it's "rowing" at certain points. Make sure to change the settings to HD if you're viewing it fullscreen.

After rafting, we made the long trek back to home. We stopped at a couple of spots along the way.