Visiting Estes Fall 2015. I’m full of “long story shorts” – we had originally planned to spend the summer in Canada. Cottage was booked, travel arrangements were made. Days before we were to leave, Jeff became critically ill on our way home from a wedding. He went into DKA (diabetic ketoacidosis) and spent several days in the ICU and a week in the hospital, with daily hospital visits for another thirty days. He was diagnosed with LADA (latent autoimmune diabetes of the adult). He is now a type 1 insulin dependent diabetic, so we were in for a drastic life change. Since our family was unable to travel as intended, we made the effort to take a few mini trips to round out the year.

October took us to Estes Park for their Fall Back Festival. We shared a cabin with friends, explored Rocky Mountain National Park, went hot tubbing under the stars, enjoyed local cuisine, dressed our kids in cute Halloween costumes and just relaxed. In my opinion, this was a really great time to visit Estes. It was quiet and there wasn’t a lot of tourist activity. The weather wasn’t too cold yet, and wildlife was out in full force. If it works with our schedule again this year, we would love to partake!