Rocky Mountain National Park (part 3)

One of the things that we hadn't seen any of was wildlife.  Dave told us that it was probably a week or two until the elk would come down from the tops of the mountains to the lower areas where they would spend the winter.

Our first view of anything at all, was just this bird sitting on a rock.  By the time I'd walked along to take a photo from its front, it had flown away, though!

Once we got further down, we did see a herd of elk who had come down early.  This was a group of females, although we saw the male standing behind a tree away from the group, just observing the group.

Drivers are only permitted to stop in official stopping places, so all James could do is drive slowly to give us a chance to take photos.

In fact, in some places, there were park wardens who would wave to oncoming traffic and point to where the wildlife actually was so that you didn't miss them.  I thought that was a very good idea.

After that, we left the Rocky Mountain National Park and started heading back to Denver.  We went through Boulder, but didn't actually stop there - just went along the main street, in the rush hour.

The time estimates for both of these tours were accurate, which is a change from some others that I've done that turned out to take 2-3 hours longer than advertised.

Again, with all the roadworks going on in downtown Denver, a group of us were dropped at the Ritz-Carlton to meet a minibus that would drop us off at our individual hotels.  It wasn't actually there to meet us, and Dave & James were going to wait for it.  So, this time I said I'd just walk as my hotel was only 3 blocks away, and got back probably before I would have done if I'd waited!