Wednesday morning was a very busy day.  It was John's last working day of the week; while he was working, Mary and I had lots of preparations to make, to get ready for the next day's backpacking trip through Rocky Mountain National Park.

After dropping John off at the office, the first order of business was to drive to Rocky Mountain National Park, to pick up our permits from the backcountry office at Rocky Mountain National Park.  The permits could only be picked up twenty-four hours before our scheduled backpacking trip was set to begin; since John had to work, it was up to me to pick those up.

So Mary and I made the hour-long drive to the backcountry office, just inside the National Park boundary.  John had pointed it out to me on Sunday, so that I knew exactly where I was going.  When we arrived, there was only one person ahead of us in line - it helped to be there on a weekday, I guess.  I remembered standing in what seemed to be the longest line in the world at the Glacier National Park backcountry office during our honeymoon; I was glad that I didn't have to go through a repeat of that adventure!

It only took us about fifteen minutes before we had our backcountry permits, which meant that we still had the whole day ahead of us.  That said, I suggested to Mary that we go take a hike - just a short hike, nothing too strenuous.  John had recommended that we try hiking Bear Lake, an easy, half-mile long trail that completely encircled the lake.  We would find the trailhead just a few miles down the road from Sprague Lake, at the end of Bear Lake Road.

We parked at the day-use parking area at the end of Bear Lake Road and started our short hike around the lake.  From the trailhead, the Bear Lake Trail - much like the Sprague Lake Trail - followed a wide, heavily-used path around the lake.  And much like Sprague Lake, the views of the Rocky Mountains were astounding.  Just beyond the tall, thick groves of pines were the snow-capped purple mountains. In the distance, we could see the famous Long's Peak, which stood at 14,529 feet above sea level; we could also see the Keyboard to the Wind, a series of jagged peaks high up on the ridgelines of the Rockies.

Bear Lake itself was very beautiful, too, and the hike around it was fun.  Along the way, we encountered small patches of snow, mainly in the areas that don't receive a lot of sun.  Mary thought it was odd to find snow in June, but I had to point out to her that that was not the first time we had come across something like that.  "Remember hiking the Inner Basin?" I asked her.  "There was lot of snow there!"

"Oh yeah," she giggled.

About a quarter of a mile into our hike, I asked Mary to pose for a picture next to a pile of boulders, on the shore of the lake.  She said okay then set her water bottle down on top of one.  Seconds later, the water bottle went tumbling down the boulder and fell into the lake!  Now, had the bottle fallen in at another point along the lake, it would have been fine; I would have just knelt down and retrieved it.  But I just wasn't that lucky.  There were three foot tall boulders standing between me and the water bottle, and I just wasn't tall enough to reach it.  Of course, this was the same water bottle that Mary was going to use for backpacking in the morning, so I had to get it back!  After several unsuccessful attempts to reach down to grab the bottle, I managed to find a stick long enough to stick through the loop that was attached to the lid, and that was how I got the bottle out of the lake.

"Hold onto that and don't set it down again!" I told Mary firmly.  I certainly wasn't going through that again!

Our hike went much better after that.  In fact, it was just a lot of fun!  Along the way, we found all sorts of little critters, such as chipmunks and squirrels, all of whom were begging for food from the passing hikers.  These creatures had no fear of humans and went right up to us, hoping for a handout.  This was a good opportunity to explain to Mary why it was bad to feed the animals.  "When animals have no fear of humans, it can be very dangerous for them," I said.  "It can also be very dangerous for us, especially if it's a bear!"

After finishing our hike around Bear Lake, I looked at my watched and discovered that it was still very early in the day.  We had time for another hike!  "Let's go hike to Nymph Lake!" I said.  "It's only a half mile!"

But Mary didn't want to hike to Nymph Lake, and suddenly, she was in full temper-tantrum mode.  I'm not sure what brought it on, either.  She typically has her meltdowns at 11:00 a.m., but this was no meltdown, and it was nowhere near 11:00.  It was, however, embarrassing, and I had to remove her from the park before she completely disturbed everyone there.

What worried me was, were we going to see this type of behavior during our backpacking trip?  Was this a sign of things to come?  If so, we weren't going to have any fun at all...

I drove her out of Rocky Mountain National Park and didn't stop until I was in Estes Park.  By that time, it was 11:00 a.m., so we stopped for lunch at Subway.  By that time, Mary had calmed down and was apologizing for her behavior; once again, all was good in the world.

After lunch, we returned to the hotel; there was no reason to try to return to Rocky Mountain National Park now, not when John was going to be off of work in a couple of hours. 

Once back at the hotel, we went to work, packing our backpacks in preparation for our backpacking trip; that included the food.  We had brought along our Foodsaver to package our food for the trip, in hopes of saving at least a little bit of weight.  Getting it all prepped took a lot of work and a lot of time; it took up most of the afternoon.  By the time we were finished, John had called to let us know that he was ready to leave work.

Since John was able to leave work early, we had time to take a dip in the pool before dinnertime.  This was our last chance to work with Mary on her swimming techniques; we even got her to jump off of the side of the pool without help, which was huge progress for her. 

After a good dinner at Applebee's, we returned to the hotel to make last minute preparations for our backpacking adventure; we also packed up our suitcases so that we would be ready to check out of the hotel in the morning.  Once everything was set, we all turned in for the night, to get plenty of sleep...

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