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ultra-ultra nervous tension of the drive. I guess I decided that maybe Professor Coover had known what he was doing after all, particularly after we'd arrived safely in Estes Park. On the drive from Denver, we ate our lunch along the banks of Boulder Creek and stopped to admire beautiful Boulder Falls on our way up the canyon. Also, we stopped often to look at the perfectly breathtaking mountain views. But for some inexplicable reason, I can't seem to identify any of our photographs with this particular drive. The one of Dodgem parked at the side of Fall River Road gives the closest idea of what the road that first day was like but it looks like I-90 compared to the road from Nederland to Estes Park. The drive from Denver to Estes Park was 105 miles and I believe it took us nearly all day. It was another beautiful day again and, although hot, it was much more pleasant as we drove up into the mountains. We stopped at the National Park Hotel at Estes Park and as I recall it, which is very vaguely, it was okay but nothing fancy. We were to spend the next five nights there while we explored the territory. In a sense, it was the "end of the road" and we were relieved to be there. One distinct advantage of the hotel was the rate for Willie and me--$3.00 per day and no garage charge because there wasn't any garage, Dodgem enjoying the open mountain air. In addition to the Cosmopolitan Hotel and garage charge that morning in Denver, there are several expense items that day indicating we may have taken part of the morning in Denver doing chores and shopping before pulling out for the wildwood:

[[two columns, one the expense item and the other the price]]

It was our first day in a big city for awhile and we evidently went all out.

The next day was Friday, June 19th, another beauty but hot--110[[degree symbol]] in the sun--but I believe the humidity was very low and I find no complaint about the weather; in fact, we'd been remarkably lucky so far. We took a trip to Big Thompson Canyon on this, our first day, in Rocky Mountain National Park. We were much impressed by the big canyon and the many majestic scenes along the river on the way down. The three photos give some idea of what we saw--it is just a shame that they aren't in color but there wasn't any color film at that point as far as I can recall. As I look at the map now, I see that the Big Thompson River runs from Estes Park down through Loveland so evidently the road simply followed the river all the way down.

Transcription Notes:
List of expense items in the middle of the page needs proper formatting.