Luke's 1st National Park!
walking across the river to the sand dunes
The wind was blowing just enough to "sandblast" us. But here's a "happy" picture!
Jimmy jumping off the dune we climbed up
The sand can reach a temperature of 149 degrees. This is a picture of Jimmy discovering that fact while begging for me to throw his shoes down to him!
Jack's turn to go down the dune
Can you spot the people?
Mom, Luke and Kate's turn to run down the dune.
When we left the dunes, we drove up to Westcliffe to stay with my good friends the Staffords. Here are Jacob (Ben's cousin), Kate, and best buddies Jack and Ben getting ready to sleep in a tent!
On Saturday, Jimmy and I left the kids at Trent & Pepper's and we headed towards Denver. We stopped for lunch and some shopping in Colorado Springs. Then headed up to Castle Rock to shop at the Outlet Mall. Then we made our way to downtown Denver. Our hotel was right next to Mile High Stadium and this was the view from our room.
On Sunday, Jimmy and I went to 16th Street in downtown Denver. After eating lunch, we spent most of the day shopping.
16th Street
Sunday evening, we celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary by attending the Nickelback concert.
This picture is for my sister Rebekah...3 bands opened for Nickelback (these are all rock groups) My Darkest Days, Seether and Bush. Here is the lead singer from Bush, Gavin Rossdale, walking through the arena during his set. He came right up our aisle!
ahh...Nickelback :)
Monday morning, Jimmy and I left Denver early to drive back to Westcliffe to pick up the kids. After lunch, the 5 of us headed up to Colorado Springs. There we took the kids to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. The zoo was built on the side of a mountain. We had a really fun afternoon there.
After the zoo, we grabbed some dinner then drove a few miles to Manitou Springs (NW side of CO Spgs) to stay the night.
Tuesday morning...our first deer. We took this picture while sitting in the drive thru lane at Sonic in Manitou Springs.
Garden of the Gods....It was a beautiful morning!
Jack starting his training to hike mountains with Grandpa.
Jack on top of Pikes Peak
Where's Jimmy?
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| After driving to the top of Pikes Peak, we took the kids to Santa's Workshop (an amusement park) |
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| yes, all 3 boys are in the Sky Ride in front of us |
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| Luke and Santa |
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| getting ready to ride the train |
Love this picture of Jack!
On Wednesday morning we headed west/southwest to Cripple Creek. Our first stop was to the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine.
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| We are 1,000 feet below the ground. |
a "scooper"
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| There are roughly 10,000 miles of connecting tunnels in this one area. |
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| After we toured the mine, we took a ride on the Narrow Gauge Railroad in Cripple Creek. |
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| The train driver asked the kids how old they were. When it was Kate's turn, she threw up her arms and exclaimed, "I'm still just THREE!" That got a good laugh from the other passengers. |
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| Our train ride took us two miles outside of town to the ghost town Anaconda. This black smith shop is the only thing left standing. |
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| After our train ride, the train driver invited Jack to climb inside and blow the train's whistle and ring its bell. |
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| Jack later told us that this was his favorite thing about our vacation! |
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| After Cripple Creek, we headed west to Buena Vista. We stopped there for an ice cream treat then headed on north. My dad had told us of a county road that ran along a river and near some ghost towns, so we decided to explore it. |
Kate really wanted to put her feet in the water.
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| Our kids absolutely love throwing rocks into water! |
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| I'm not sure you can tell from this picture just how grubby he is, but yes, you are seeing correctly that he only has 1 shoe on and was quite happy that way! |
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| Near the river where we played, is the ghost town of Vicksburg. It was a silver mining town. This is about that's left of it. |
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| After playing in the river for a bit, we headed on towards Aspen. This scenic road is known as the "Top of the Rockies Byway". Didn't Jimmy take a great picture?!!! |
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| Independence Pass Summit |
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| Yes, it was chilly....yes, Luke has shucked his jacket....yes he has no shoes on.....and yes, he is one happy little dude! |
Kate said her favorite part of our vacation was driving to the top of the mountains.
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| After we took the above picture, Luke started pointing at the snow and started yelling, "MILK! MILK!" |
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| near Aspen, not only was this pool crystal clear it was deep |
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| Maroon Bells outside of Aspen |
The beauty of this place literally took my breath away. (Didn't Jimmy take another great picture?!!) These peaks are considered to be the most photographed peaks in Colorado. Grandpa....Jimmy's mentioned a few times he'd like to climb those......
Wednesday night we spent the night in Carbondale (west of Aspen). The next morning we drove to Basalt (between Carbondale and Aspen) then drove on a road through the mountains that my mom recommended. It didn't take long to see why this is one of her favorite drives in Colorado.
I guess the scenic drive was too exciting for them.....
When we hit I-70 we headed west towards Glenwood Springs. We drove through Glenwood Canyon but were unable to find a spot on the interstate to pull over and get a good picture (plus our windshield was just covered in bug splats.) But I did manage a shot of one of the few tunnels we drove through much to the excitement of our boys.
This picture doesn't show it too well, but when we'd hit the entrance to a tunnel, Luke would catch his breath and his eyes would widen so big I was afraid they'd pop out! It was hilarious!
Towards the late afternoon, we made it to the north rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.
We thought we were nervous with the kids when we were at the Grand Canyon...but with these sheer cliffs and sudden drop offs here, holy cow we're Jimmy and I nervous! Let's just say this is the only lookout spot the kids got out for!
But once again, Jimmy managed to take some pretty awesome pictures!
After leaving the north rim, we had to drive about 50 miles through the mountains to hit the highway that would take us into Montrose. Along the way, we spotted our first elk of the trip (we saw 3 more further up the road on a hill, and that was it for our elk count).
When we pulled up to a picnic table for supper, Kate was laughing and said, "Mommy, I look like an old woman!" So Jack took this picture of her.
What's for dinner? frito pie!
Friday morning found us at the south rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. We took a 5 mile 16% grade road to the bottom of the east side of the canyon. And of course, where there are rocks near water.......
After we left the national park, we headed east towards Gunnison and then turned south towards Lake City. Once we went through Lake City and over a mountain pass we came into this unbelievable gorgeous valley, and in this valley is North Clear Creek Falls. I read that it is believed to be the most photographed waterfall in Colorado. (And yes, our kids were trying to throw rocks into it...)
A few miles down the road we stopped and hiked to South Clear Creek Falls.
While at this waterfall, we saw what Jimmy believed to be moose droppings (but there was no moose in sight). And after he climbed up on some rocks to take this picture, he found what he thought looked like a very large version of Pumpkin's (our cat) poop. So...we decided we should probably head on out and kept the kids close to us!
When we left the waterfall, we noticed that it seemed to be getting hazy rather quickly. Pretty soon we could smell smoke in the air and as we came into this valley, this is what greeted us. (I later discovered that the forest fire was near Pagosa Springs, west of where this picture was taken.)
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| As the highway curved up north toward the town of Creede, we noticed someone stopped along the side of the road looking at something....a herd of 12 bighorn rams!!! Jack and Kate were ecstatic! |
King of the Road
The rest quickly followed suit and we watched them all jump the fence, cross the road and jump the fence into a pasture.
And we didn't go 100 yards from these rams when we saw 2 more on the other side of the road.
We drove on east towards Alamosa then turned south and headed home. Although we put1860+ miles on the car, we all had such a blast!!!
