We have seen a lot of spectacular scenery, but we haven't seen much wildlife. Cindy saw some deer while walking to the bathroom and I saw an elk making the same trip this morning. Strangely, we have observed more wildlife walking the hundred yards or so in the campground than the time spent in the park.
Our luck changed today. When our reservation let us into the park, we decided to drive a 40-or-so-mile route. About halfway through, we came across several cars parked along the road and they were watching a herd of elk. We saw the elk, but there was no place to park so we drove a 1/4 mile or so further down the road, found a place to park, and then walked back. The group of elk had begun to move, but we found a pair that had moved ahead of the others and within a reasonable distance of the road for my camera.
The hike back to the car proved to be challenging. It was uphill and there was little room on the side of the road. It took a while to begin to breathe normally again. We are still not used to the altitude.
The day provided one more surprise. The end of our route turned out to be a different entrance on the other side of the park. We exited and then began to look for a route back to our campground. It turned out the primary route back was to retrace our original route. This was a challenging drive because of the windy route through the high mountains. The alternative was two hours longer driving back towards Denver to get around the perimeter of the park. We had also exited the park and now had to deal with the timed entry reservation process again. Yesterday we waited more than half an hour in line to get to the gate. After some discussion, we decided to take the long way home with a couple of stops along the way,
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