After we were done with sampling around Colorado Springs we headed up to my advisor's cabin in Granby, which is 40 miles west of Winter Park. We played golf at the Grand Lake course, it was JM's first full round. He had a ton of fun!
The cabin is right outside of Rocky Mountain National Park. We decided to take a drive up there. It was John's first National Park visit! JM's too, but he slept through the whole thing. We topped out at 12,183 feet and it was cold up there! What a welcome relief from all the heat back home. We saw a few elk, but no bears.
You can see the Paternoster lakes if you look hard in this picture. A little geology lesson, if you know your latin, Paternoster refers to the Lord's Prayer. These lakes are glacial lakes that are connected by streams, making them look like rosary beads (in map view), hence their name. They were beautiful.
We went back to Grand Lake afterwards and walked around the piers as well as played some putt-putt, which JM loved!!
On our way back home we stopped by the Denver Aquarium. This was an extremely mind-blowing trip for JM. I'm sure he'll enjoy it later on as well when he actually will remember it! His picture that looks like extreme fear is just him in awe of some sharks swimming around.
We saw some amazing storms moving across the Kansas plains on the way home. This is looking east toward Goodland and Colby. This storm produced some high winds (65+) as well as golf ball sized hail. It had beautiful structure and it was amazing to watch its evolution. The second one was actually in Nebraska, and fizzled out fairly quickly, although it still laid down some strong winds!
