Day 15 (4/9/21): Denver

Today, we woke up at the Boondockers place in Estes Park, Colorado. We got ourselves ready and ventured back into Rocky Mountain National Park. It was a much more gray, overcast, and foggy morning. So I'm really glad that we did all of the driving and hiking that we did yesterday! It was definitely the best day and weather for it. 

Today we drove up a few more roads; however, it was a little bit icy on the roads and there was a lot of switchbacks so we didn't go all the way up. 

We did some smaller hikes and saw an alluvial fan. Which us where there had been a slide of debris from the mountain and all of the rocks and debris fan out into a valley area. We did a walk through the area and saw some waterfalls that had formed.  

Then, we headed out and stopped in Boulder to go to REI on our way to Denver. When we arrived in Denver, we met Erik at his flight safety training office. He was able to give us a small tour, which was exciting to see where he works and done his training. He was able to show us the classrooms where they start their training and then they advance into simulators that are basically computer screens with some buttons and knobs that mimic the cockpit setup. Then, they move up to some simulators that are more advanced with more buttons and knobs. And finally, they get tested on a real simulator of the cockpit. 

Afterwards, we went back to his house where Mom and I showered and got ourselves ready before we went to dinner. We ended up going out to a local pub which had great food and one of Erik's friends joined us too. 

Then, we went back to Erik's house and I cleaned up the camper while mom packed because she was flying out in the morning. Erik's roommates were also really interested in seeing the camper because they want to do a van conversion. So I gave them a small tour and we talked about different ideas that they have.

Now, it's interesting going through the transition from traveling on vacation with my mom to traveling on vacation but living in the camper full time by myself. It makes it feel more real that I am actually living in my camper now. 

Once my mom was all packed, we went to bed because we had an early morning for her flight. We slept on the street outside of Erik's house.