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We took Hwy 530 to Vernal, UT and then Hwy 40 to Granby, CO and then Hwy 34 (Colorado River Headwaters Byway) to Grand Lake, CO. We drove by the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, Dinosaur National Monument and Steamboat Springs.

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A view of Flaming Gorge from an overlook. This is an incredible drive and all along the way they have signs about the geology and the type of dinosaurs that would have live here eons ago.

Just outside of Vernal, UT is:

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It is about 6 miles north of Hwy 40 and we spent about an hour there but could have stayed longer and taken a ranger tour.

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They have enclosed a section of mountain that has fossils embedded in the rock/soil.

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Grand Lake, CO
We decided to stay in Grand Lake 1 night and drive the Trail Ridge road to Estes Park for 1 night. Grand Lake is a neat little town, you can walk the main streets in a hour or so.

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We stayed here, most of the lodging seemed to be mon & pop type; did not notice a national chain.

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A small city park in GL, just off of the main street.

Trail Ridge Road and RMNP
We left GL and made several stops on the way to the Alpine Visitor Center.

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In the valley we took a 1/2 mile walk to the Holzwarth Historical site, crossed this river, which may be the Colorado River.

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One of the buildings at the historical site.

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On the way to the Alpine Visitor Center we stopped at an overlook to view the valley where the river and historical site are. The Holzwarth is inside the trees on the right in about the middle of the picture.

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Made it to the Alpine Visitor Center and

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walked up these steps to the summit at 12,000 feet.

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It was windy, a little cold and not much oxygen up there.

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A view from the summit.

East side of RMNP
We stopped at more overlooks on the way down to Estes Park and then stopped at the visitor center at the east entrance to RMNP and got some recommendations from the ranger.

That afternoon we walked around Lilly Lake and Bear Lake and made plans to come and hike to Nymph, Dream and maybe Emerald lakes the next morning. The ranger said if we got to Bear Lake by 8:00 we should find a parking space, otherwise we would probably have to take the park-n-ride shuttle. We got a parking spot even after stopping by Cinnamon's Bakery which didn't open until 7:30.

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Map of the Bear Lake area; it is not that far to the other lakes but they are all at higher elevations.

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List of lakes and elevation change posted at the ranger office.

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Bear Lake

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Nymph Lake, they are really more like ponds.

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Dream Lake.

We did not make it to Emerald Lake, the SO decided that was a lake too far, and she later regretted that decision.

Estes Park is much larger than Grand Lake but we did not do anything there expect sleep and eat at two diners. The food was good.

We left EP and drove to the Denver area for the meeting I was attending. After that we had planned to so to Santa Fe for 1 night, then on to LA to visit family. But changed the plans because of the hurricane and just headed back to NC.

This post was edited on 10/18/19 at 8:05 am