After I finished up a big project at work, where I worked a ton of long days for almost a month, we decided to take our family vacation. Our family vacations always include picking a state and then doing/seeing all the things in that state. We really didn’t feel up to planning an elaborate vacation, and since we were still rebuilding our savings from my being laid off, we opted to stay in Colorado. Neither Chris or I had been to all the sights in Colorado for several years, so we figured why not!
We didn’t plan anything other than than talk about the major things we wanted to see/do: Royal Gorge, possibly Cave of the Winds or Garden of the Gods depending on weather (very rainy summer), Sand Dunes, Durango, Mesa Verde, hot springs, camping. We decided on July 3rd that we ought to book some hotels so we would at least have a bed to sleep in along the way. We bought the AAA book for sites/food, similar to our California road trip prior to kids, and left on July 4th and drove down to Colorado Springs.
(Sadly, Cooper reset my phone before I could back up all the pictures, so I don’t have everything from our entire vacation.)
Our first stop was the Royal Gorge. I remember going here as a kid and the bridge had been closed for a time due to the fires a few summers ago. The Royal Gorge bridge was smaller than I remember, but beautiful sights! Cooper said he didn’t like the bridge at all because it was shaky. After 20 minutes, we had a huge storm move through and pour rain on us. We huddled under a shelter on the other side of the bridge while the lightening passed. I was cold and wet by the end, but my children were warm and dry. Sacrifices.
This is the only picture I have of us – the one taken by the photo people at the Royal Gorge.
And look – here I am at the same age as my kiddos! My sister Savannah is sitting on Santa’s lap and my sister Angel is standing next to me. This is Santa’s workshop and I know our family visited the Royal Gorge on this trip as well.
This is me again around age 12 or so at the Royal Gorge. My sister Savannah is next to me and my brother Larry is next to her.
After the Royal Gorge we went back to Colorado Springs and checked into our hotel. We had dinner at a local place, Mason Jar Restaurant, that served blackberry margaritas! Yum!
For fireworks, we drove just outside of the central park area and parked in a neighborhood to watch. None of us care for large crowds of people, so this was a great way to watch fireworks.
The next morning we slept in a bit and got on the road to head to the Sand Dunes. Google Maps ended up taking us a back way to offroading and closed roads.
After backtracking and losing an hour, we arrived just in time for it to rain on us again. We hid out in the store and had lunch at the restaurant and the skies cleared enough for us to rent sand sleds and sandboards. It was pretty cool to have the creek full of water. The kids had a ton of fun, despite a couple of big wipeouts. I am most sad about losing most of the pics and video from this part of the trip. It was so fun.
After the Sand Dunes we made our to dinner at a local brewery, San Luis Valley Brewing Co. We also got to watch the US women’s soccer team beat Japan. Perfect timing.
We then had a beautiful sunset drive to our little cabin at Foothills Lodge and Cabins.
The next morning we finished the drive to Durango. So many beautiful places in Colorado!
We had lunch at a great restaurant in Durango (don’t remember which one) and then went to Mesa Verde. Cooper wanted to know if ruins were like dungeons. He also said that ruins are called ruins because they are ruined.
And I erased almost all the people. (Take several shots and then layer the shots and remove the people.)
The kids became junior rangers.
After Mesa Verde, we checked into our fancy suite at Purgatory Resort just outside of Durango. The kids were very impressed! We had enough room for each of them to have their own room, but they opted to share a room Here is the view from the balcony.
The next day we did the family fun activities, which included trampolines, an obstacle course (in the air above the pool) and a short zipline.
The real reason we did it was to test the kids’ interest in ziplining before we made a day out of it. They loved it.
Unfortunately, during the obstacle course, a bad storm suddenly rolled in and we got drenched, plus had bad lightening while we were attempting to get down. None of us liked that. We went back to the hotel room and read/slept/played electronics for the rest of the day. We went to the Sow’s Ear for dinner. It was a super fancy steak place and the food was delicious. After dinner we swam and sat in the hotel hot tub.
The next day we went into Durango for ziplining at Zipline Durango. It was such a fantastic time! I was a lot more nervous than the kids. They just jumped and went. I am really glad we did the extended ziplining tour, because the second set of ziplines was a lot more fun.
Their photographer sucks. I just don’t get what settings he used! The trees are in focus and we are blurry. Ugh.
No injuries, other than a scrape from my sunglasses.
We had lunch at a cool brewery (don’t remember the name). They had chalk for the kids to draw on the floor. Very cool idea. We did a little bit of shopping and then drove to Ouray for a warm swim before dinner. We had dinner at Outlaw Steak Cookout where Cooper pretended to be Harry Potter and Chris and I had margaritas. We had ice cream at the Ouray Candy Co before heading to our next hotel.
We checked into our hotel at Chipeta Solar Springs Resort (we didn’t stay in Ouray because everything was booked). It was a cool little resort. The kids swam and got in the hot tub before bed. We chatted and had drinks with other people, while listening to live music around the firepit.
The next morning we had a fantastic breakfast at the hotel restaurant and then headed to our final destination to go camping. We camped at Buena Vista KOA because the kids had never been camping before. We wanted some of the easy amenities and it was a good decision in the end.
It was nice to get home on a Friday and have the rest of the weekend to clean up and decompress.
No comments:
Post a Comment