Squirrel!  Or in our case, Chipmunk!  

A few years ago we wanted to go escape to the Mountains to get out of 100 degree August heat, but living in Missouri where?  We looked online for place in Estes Park Colorado.  Estes Park is outside of Rocky Mountain National Park.  Problem was...we had 4 kids.  All hotels want a maximum of 5 people for fire codes.  Two rooms were just too expensive.  Solution: VRBO.com Vacation Rental By Owner.

For as little as $116 a night we had a remote mountain CLEAN cabin on a creek complete with Bunk Loft with 2 beds upstairs of kids and 1 bedroom/bath for us.  Clean kitchen and best of all-only entertainment was old Kenny Rogers RECORDS on an old record player.  Yes!  

So we stayed 16 miles outside of RMNP in Colorado.  Now for hiking.  How to take 4 small kids hiking?  All Handicap trails were made for us.  We were up early anyhow (hello little kids!) so we found them to ourselves from 7am until about 10am.  By then we wanted a snack and a morning nap anyhow. The scenery is beautiful and look we had to wear coats-in August!! The Alpine Visitor Center is at 11,900 feet so make sure you don't go there the 1st day you arrive from 600 feet.  We had lots of water bottles and drove up to it and then hiked another 50 feet or so around looking at the beautiful scenery and Elk!  So even though we planned to stay in Estes Park, we ended up staying outside it 16 miles and it was perfect to drive every day! 

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