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Seven Falls is located in Colorado Springs, CO. It is kind of a tall waterfall formed by seven other small falls.

This is beautiful at night because they have flash lights in different colors for seven water falls. We went there in the evening but left before it gets much dark. So we couldn't see the real beauty of it.

We had plans to stay the night in Colorado Springs but changed the plan as we wanted to visit Colorado National Monument next day. So we booked a hotel (Quality inn) in Silverthorne and drove there.

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It was around 8.30 am when we leave Estes park. First we visited a friend of ours in Colorado State University. We had lunch there and then drove to Colorado Springs to visit Garden of the Gods. It is a park full of unusually formed red colored stones.

The scenery was beautiful under the reddish rays of sinking sun.

 

There were hiking trails too. However we just drove around the park and left it soon as we were planning to see Seven Falls in Colorado Springs too.
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Bear lake is a best destination in Rocky mountains. It is a small lake surrounded by woods and beautiful mountains.

Unfortunately the lake was covered with snow that day. It was still early may so that was expected. It is good to go there in late may or later if you are planning a trip.

Since the bear lake was frozen, we visited a nearby lake named Sprague lake. It was full with water and really beautiful. We took the foot trail which runs around the lake and collected many nice photographs.

 

We still had few hours left. so we drove on the open parts of the trail ridge road and visited sheep lakes but they lacked water. However we were able to see some mountain elks there.

We spent the night in Four seasons Inn, Estes park. The hotel had only few rooms but the room was clean and comfy.

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Our main target of Colorado trip was Rocky mountains national park. We searched the park's web site and decided to drive on some scenic byways like Trailridge road and Old fall river road in the park.

While driving from Denver to Rockies, we chose a scenic byway named peak to peak byway.  It was really a nice byway and we could experience lots of scenery  of snow covered blue mountains on the way.

 This is the map of our route from Denver to Rockies.



View Larger Map


We arrived in Estes park around noon and got to know that both Trailridge and Oldfall river byways are closed until Memorial day (27th May). This is a fact to remember if you are visiting Rockies before memorial day.

So we had lunch from Estes park and then visited Bear lake, which is another beautiful location in Rocky mountains park.
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In mid of May 2013, we visited Colorado, mainly Rocky mountains. We had to fly from Indianapolis to Denver as the trip takes like two days to drive. 

We flew with Frontier Airlines and it should get a credit for their on time departures. I have really bad experiences with American Airlines on this subject before. So we arrived in Denver International airport 9 pm and took the shuttle to Hertz rental to get the car we had reserved. It was around 11 pm when we get to the hotel (Hawthorn Suites) we had reserved for the night.

To mention a word about the hotel, the suit was clean and nice, worth for the price. It provides breakfast but only grab and go kinda thing.

So we got a good sleep and headed Rocky mountains next day. 
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We went white water rafting in Menominee river, Wisconsin. The company is called "Wildman adventure resort".  We went there for the 9.30 ride and realized that we had booked the wrong day. However they asked us to wait and see if another group doesn't show up so that we can take their place. Fortunately, the group who had booked the wild ride didn't show up so we could take their place.

Wild ride is special because the raft is small and it can hold only 4 people. That group gets to ride the rank 4 ranch thrice while others do it twice. There, we have go over the ranch 3 times and come back by foot  2 times.

We got a female guide and she was really nice and active. I guess it would be more fun if the water level was bit higher that day but it was great for a first time rafting experience.
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