The immediate area around the entry of the park is a beautiful little meadow. We decide to take the adventurous Old Fall River Road path which is unpaved and very windy and along the path we stop at an overlook of the West Horseshoe Park area and are greeted by a lot of people mulling about. Court as she gets out sees a deer and was off to try to get a picture of it. Meanwhile a guy from the crowd comes up to me and says that there are is a view of two bull moose along the stream. It's a bit of a distance away but still very impressive. We head out from here to Alluvial Fan which is a gorgeous cascade and waterfall. The crowds here were thick though and so it was a bit frustrating dealing with the people. Abby tells us that the water flow through here is from snow melt so it's good that we got here when we did as it would likely dry out by late August.
The adventurous road starts shortly after this stop and gets off to a quick start of anxiety for Court who was driving as it had a steep side and no guardrail. The drive along here was stunning with the forest and valley. Lots of small wildflowers along the side of the road added to the beauty of the drive. At one point we stopped at Chasm Falls which was a very nice view with a short hike. The problem being that I'm still out of shape and this is an even higher altitude than some of the other areas that I was having difficulty catching my breath at. This isn't a huge problem, except for the fact that it was a series of stairs down to the waterfall which meant that it was a series of stairs to get back up. By the time I got back to the van, I was very out of breath. We kept driving the path and enjoying the views. Near the end of the road is a hiking trail that was incredibly busy. As we wound the corners and got closer there were some marmots out around a little lake. We kept going since we aren't particularly fond of crowds. As we head up to the visitor center at the end of the road we see two marmots in the middle of the road fighting with eachother. It's a lot of fun to watch.
We headed up to the visitor center and stopped go to the bathroom before heading in. On our way from the bathroom to the visitor center we see a big box truck starting to go down the wrong way of the dirt road we had just left. Who the heck knows what they are thinking. We grab some gifts from the visitor center and head out on our way outish of the park. After heading around some of the corners we find a herd of elk browsing through the trees. We stop and grab some photos and watch a ton of people just cruise on past. I'm not sure if these are people that just used to seeing elk or if we are the strange ones but it makes me wonder why these people are here. We keep driving and head through some more meadows but in this area there had been a fire and the fire scar that was left was very sad. There was another small herd of elk down here too which was awesome to see. We left the park and started heading back to the hotel.
Along the way we stop at Debbie's Drive In for lunch and have some amazing burgers and fries. Gideon has even rated these as the second behind Five Guys. We all enjoy them very much as we drive back. The drive is a bit long from this side of the park since we need to drive all the way back to the highway we had passed through yesterday. When we arrive back to the hotel we had some time to enjoy a bit of a break while we evaluate what we wanted to do for dinner. Court found a pierogi place, Baba and Pop's Piergois. Since Abigail loves pierogis, we decided that this has to be the place we go. We head out and the area around the shop has a lot of very beautiful murals on the walls. The pierogis here were really good as well. Gideon even enjoyed them although his were pizza flavored essentially. We headed from here to get some dessert at a frozen custard place.
After we arrive at the frozed custard place, things got really strange. At one of the cars ahead of us in the line a woman walked up and opened the side door. She removed from the car an older child whole was naked. She walked around the building with the kid, opened the door to the van again and deposited the kid back into the car. She then walked away across the street into the subdevelopment there. The van eventually gets to the window, picks up something and then drives off. After this drama, a car that had just left drive through reverses back into the plaza from the road for some reason and a truck pulls in towing a trailer with a tire that may as well have not had any of the rubber on it anymore it was so flat. What a strange area. We head back to the hotel and go to bed.