OT - More Colorado Suggestions Please

Hi all.

My wife and I have the chance to take a little road trip at the end of June some time. We will just have a a couple of days, but we enjoy driving. We are starting from Vernal, UT.

We have looked at going as far as Denver or Estes Park. We have looked at Breckenridge or Steamboat springs too.

Do you have any suggestions of 'must see' places? We love to explore, and are not the types to go an sit in a hotel room, and as I say, we like driving.

I may take a few grab shots here and there, or shoot any flowers that we find (not necessarily planning on a lot of those), but the trip will mainly be sight seeing - not photography.

Any thoughts would be helpful of good places to stay or eat in these places.

Thanks.

Nathan

Of the places you mentioned, there's Fish Creek Falls near Steamboat, Trail Ridge Road and the hike up to Dream Lake in RMNP, and Mayflower Gulch near Breckenridge.

If you haven't been to the San Juan Mountains before, that might provide more sight-seeing opportunities. You could stop at Colorado National Monument and Black Canyon NP on the way. Anywhere you go in the mountains around Silverton & Ouray is spectacular. And you could continue on to Mesa Verde if you wanted.

Thanks Grant. We did see GJ, Ouray, Silverton, and Durango last year. Those were wonderful. We loved it. I think this time we are leaning toward staying in Breck as the summer rates for lodging are very good.

Thanks for the other ideas above.

Nathan

What type of vehicle do you have? If you are going to stay in Breck there are some great 4WD roads just to the east with awesome views, old mining ruins, mountain goats, and the road tops out at over 13,000 ft, portions of which are along the Continental Divide. The roads are pretty easy and don't require you to have modified your vehicle.

We have a Chev Suburban (4wd stock) Scott. We have contemplated taking a family members small car to save on money, but it would disallow us doing things like the 4x4 roads.

Nathan

From Breck you can go up Boreas Pass and you might find some flowers in the meadows toward the top (it is a little early due to the amount of snow, I think). Shrine Ridge outside of Vail is also a good flower place in July. We are planning to hike to lower cataract falls which were really flowing two weeks ago. I have heard the columbines are very thick in the beginning of that easy hike. We are hoping to get up there at the end of June, beginning of July. The trailhead is between Steamboat and I-70. A challenging and rewarding hike is Herman Gulch, just off I-70 near the Eisenhower tunnel. Rocky Mountain NP is awesome, of course, so any time you have to check it out would be worthwhile. The normal "must see" is Dream Lake on the East side (Estes Park side) of the park. For anything RMNP related, I'd check out Erik Stensland's photography and website. If you do make it to Denver, be sure to check out the Denver Botanic Garden. As a flower guy, you'll really enjoy it. They allow tripods for no additional charge and have really made the flowers accessible.
Have a great trip!

Thanks everyone. I know that I threw out a pretty general question, so I appreciate everyone indulging me with some thoughts!

Nathan