Rocky Mountain National Park

Today was absolutely incredible!!! Originally we had a training session scheduled but due to changes made in the schedule, the Sun Unit went to Rocky Mountain National Park to go hiking. Our first hiking trip was cancelled due to poor weather conditions so today seemed perfect. Vaughn, our Unit Leader, also decided we could go out of uniform so we got to wear whatever we wanted and made sure to layer up nice and warm. We also got to leave a little later than 800am, so we slept in for a few extra minutes which was very nice. After breakfast we made sure we had everything, loaded up in the vans and headed for the mountains. It was a nice little drive…between an hour and a half to two hours, but the drive was gorgeous and we went through Boulder and Estes Park, which was nice. Driving into Estes Park we saw a group of Elk just hanging out on the side of the road, it was crazy. Once we got to the Park we went to the Elk Viewing Area first, and since it’s like Elk mating season there were a ton of them. After that, we drove a little further into the park, grabbed our bags and headed up the Fern Lake trail. We basically hiked about 2 miles up…and that was quite the experience and stopped for lunch at this beautiful area at the top of that particular trail. It’s by a bridge over a waterfall and just gorgeous to look at. We had our bagged lunches, took plenty of pictures and then headed back down the 2-mile trail to the vans. While waiting for everyone we played some arousing games of “Hay Barn” and “The Poking Game” and eventually we had everybody accounted for and hopped back in the vans for an exciting trip back to campus. We ran into some traffic so it took a little longer to get home but we made it and I was exhausted at that point. The car ride, the hiking and the fresh air put this girl in ultra sleepy mode. We came back, had dinner and the group is basically doing a few different things tonight. Some are headed out for a while but I am definitely staying in and most likely going to bed early, haha. I got some good books to read so that might be a nice relaxing end to my evening. Tomorrow we have sessions all day and then the dreaded four o’clock hour comes and we find out our permanent teams. I’ll wake up with a slight stomachache and nerves for sure, but we’ll see what happens. We find out projects/locations either tomorrow or Saturday, so fingers crossed for that too-I want to be one of the 22 teams leaving the state. Be sure to look for pictures in the photo gallery…it’s a slow upload for some reason, but I will always try to put some new ones up there.

Smiles and love, Nichole