Following Scott's Raising Disciple-Makers seminar at Hope Community Church near Wichita, Kansas on September 17-18, he and I headed joyfully west for the mountains of Colorado, where we were eagerly anticipating spending the better part of a week celebrating our 34th wedding anniversary -- together, alone, and in one of the most scenic areas of the country. Ahhh!

Our Summer of Sngs was wonderful and full(!) and I'm glad to report that those four precious people are now at home in Hong Kong, having endured a mandatory three-week quarantine in a government-approved, self-funded Courtyard (by Marriott) hotel. Now, can YOU imagine living with a two-year-old and a ten-month-old in two adjoining hotel rooms 24/7?!? Staying inside without so much as stepping out into the hall for 21 days? Having meals left outside your door three times a day by hotel employees in haz-mat suits? Being COVID tested (and your kids' poop COVID tested!) four times during your quarantine? Washing your laundry for a family of four by hand in the bathroom sink? They did survive and seem to be still sane.

Anyway, we were thrilled to have them here with us, and after three months of focusing pretty much fulltime on those super-precious four, we had only ten days to rest(?!?), clean things up, return borrowed baby gear, re-arrange parts of the house, catch up on long-neglected business, ministry, church, and personal responsibilities, prep for Scott's seminar, and pack for two days in Kansas (highs in the 90s) and a week in the Rockies (lows in the 20s). After three very full months, those were ten very full days.

Since we really didn't even have time to breathe, much less research what we'd like to see and do in and around Rocky Mountain National Park, Katie, long known as Research Consultant, gave us an outstanding gift. I honestly don't know if it was her idea or if Scott asked for it, but she put together The. Most. Amazing. 15-page packet of information, containing loads of information, suggested daily itineraries, maps, links, and fun suggestions, all specifically tailored for our personal time frames, interests, and physical limitations. Just to give you an idea of the scope, here's a picture of the first page.

Each of those blue links takes you to a paragraph or two of informative blurb and a picture of the place. I can tell you that I printed this baby out and we carried it with us everywhere! In fact, this is our actual well-used, slightly rumpled copy, and if you look closely at the top right corner, you can faintly see the "Important Details" heading on page two.

During those hectic ten days between the end of our Summer of Sngs and the beginning of our 2,900 mile road trip, we... ahem... well... glanced through this document, but failed to note that rather critical section on page two. Here's what I sent my dad (post-trip) when he asked, "While checking out the Old Fall River Road (we drove it many years ago - Mom thought I was kind of crazy to try it) I saw that you needed a time scheduled reservation in advance to enter the park.  Did you have to do that?"

Yes, and it got pretty crazy. Katie had done reams of research and basically prepared us a personal itinerary that took into account our time frames, preferences, and physical limitations. She was amazing! In fact, I will forward those emails to you so you can see what all she gave us. 
One of the very first things she put on her document to us was this notice (highlighting mine):

Important Details

Passes and Timed Entry Permits

To enter the park between May 28 and October 11 requires two things: a Timed Entry Permit plus a Park Pass or Entrance Fee. 

Timed Entry Permits MUST be reserved online in advance of your visit. 

For the entry fee, you could go with a 1-day pass ($25), an annual RMNP pass ($70), or an annual pass for all National Parks ($80). Also note that once Mom turns 62, she can purchase a lifetime senior pass for all National Parks ($80) and you'll never have to worry about entry fees again! Many more details on the RMNP website.

I strongly recommend that you review this information carefully and reserve the appropriate passes before leaving Walnut Shade.

Well, Sngs left on Sept. 6 and we had ten days to try to get our lives and house back in order, catch up on many details (work, ministry, church, etc.) that had not been tended to in three months, rest, prep for Scott's RDM seminar in Kansas, and pack for our CO trip. The end result was that we glanced at Katie's work, thanked her for it, printed it out, and hit the road... without heeding the yellow [box] above. = {

Since we hadn't reserved our timed entry passes before leaving home, and since most people do, there were only a limited supply of  timed entry passes available for each day, and they had to be purchased online ($2) the evening before, beginning at 5:00 PM. This meant that for every day that we wanted to go into the park - and especially for our first day (Tuesday) that we wanted to go to the Bear Lake (most popular) area of the park, we would have to be somewhere with reliable internet (didn't know if our cabin would qualify!) at 5:00 PM the evening before, no matter what. This added an element of stress to our trip.

Monday evening, Scott was able to get online in our cabin at 5:00 PM to get our Bear Lake area timed entry pass. I think there were something like 190 of these "last minute" passes available. He got ours at 5:02 PM, and by about 5:15, they were all gone! That evening he also bought us a 7-day admission pass for $35. We were to enter between 9:00 and 11:00 AM Tuesday, and we got to the gate about 9:10, only to find a HUGE line of cars. We sat in that line for about 35 minutes, but finally got in and had a great day.

BUT... we'd have to get a Wednesday timed entry permit that evening, and there were only two places in the east side of the park with internet: the Beaver Meadow Visitor Center and the Fall River Visitor Center. We spent all Tuesday in the park and at 4:30 headed back toward the Beaver Meadow visitor Center. But we had some time to kill before 5:00, and I wanted to see where a certain road went, and when Scott turned left to go there, we landed smack in the middle of a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam that there was no way to get out of, due to road construction! I was devastated! The line to get back to the Beaver Meadow Visitor Center was literally a mile long in the opposite direction, and without internet we couldn't order a timed entry pass, and the idea of not being able to get into the park for one of our three days there nearly made me cry. 

So I pulled out our park map and Katie's 15-page document and figured out that if all the stars aligned, we might be able to get to the Fall River Visitor Center by 5:00. And we made it at 4:58. Scott grabbed his computer and ran in while I went to the bathroom. A few minutes later, he pulled one of your own vacation moves: glum face, head down, he told me that they were all sold out. In fact, they had sold out at 5:05. AARRGGHH!! But he had bought ours at 5:03! Whew! (and yes, those were the actual times, no exaggeration)

And every day we went through stuff like that, all because we hadn't reviewed Katie's document carefully.
Moral of the story: read the Important Details!

To be continued...

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