Colorado 2010

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Here are some of the 600 pictures we took on our Colorado vacation this summer. We had a great time. We started the trip at 6:00 am Thursday morning and the kids were busting at the seams excited, Riley just because his sister was. He also got to turn his car seat around for the first time. We drove to Wichita Falls and had breakfast at Cracker Barrel. We hit the rode again and made it all the way to Amarillo for lunch at Chick-fil-a. The kids were so great in the car. They each had a fun bag and I would give them something new every few hours. When that got old we would put in a movie or take a nap. They didn’t fuss the whole way. After Amarillo, we drove to Santa Fe, where we stayed the night. We got there around 5pm, had an early dinner and make a Target stop. We took our time leaving the next morning and got to Mogote about noon. I love the feeling of making that turn down to Mogote. I traveled that road so many times as a child and as an adult and it just feels like I’m coming back home. We stayed at Conejos Ranch for the weekend, where my family reunion took place. The kids had the best time throwing rocks in the river and playing in the dirt. They were tired and filthy every day. We ate at our favorite place there in town Dos Hermanas. We enjoyed mexican food and fried ice cream. We ended the weekend with some good ole country music playing and a midnight walk through an old cemetary and burned out church.  I enjoyed my family so much.
Sunday we headed north to Livermore, just up from Fort Collins where we had rented at home for the remainder of the trip. We stopped in Buena Vista for milk shakes and to play at a fun park. We stopped again at McCalister’s for dinner and got groceries in Fort Collins, where they had a Whole Foods!!! We arrived at our Elk Horn Cabin late, late and up a four wheel drive road that we were not prepared for. The house was neat, but no place for kids and much further out than we had expected. There was also the issue of rat poop and rat poison, broken toilets, dirty beds, and dirty cat litter box, that we were unable to over look. We left first things the next morning and asked for a refund, which we got and headed to Estes Park to look for a place to stay. This was an exhausting day. It was difficult to find a place that had fun stuff to do on the property, a place to cook (we had bought all our groceries the day before), accepted pets and was large enough for our family and my parents. We ate lunch in Estes Park and began our search. We let the kids play at a park for a little while. We called over 30 places and visited many and finally at 7:00 that night we found a lovely place way back called Aspen Lodge. It was a little bit Twilight Zone because no one was there, but we stayed anyway and the next morning we had our breakfast in the dining room and it was amazing! Again, a little Twilight Zone, it was just us in this huge dining room, but the food was so good we extended our stay another night. That first day we hung out at Aspen Lodge that morn, Chris and Dad played racquetball, and the kids took naps, while Maimee sewed Riley a blanket. That afternoon we ate pizza and walked around Estes Park and shopped until we could walk and shop no more. The next day we enjoyed the morning at Aspen Lodge again with another amazing breakfast. The chef made Mckenzee a Mickey Mouse pancake. Then, we packed up and checked out and drove to Rocky Mountain National Park. Beautiful. I cannot wait to go back and see it again. Mountains, wildlife, snow, hiking trials. So, so pretty.
Next, we went to Grand Lake and ate too much barbeque and walked around a bit there. We weren’t sure what to do after that. We had planned to stay another day when we made our trip plans, but didn’t have accommodations anywhere. We drove to Denver and parted ways with my parents there. They were going to try and make Trinidad and we still had no plan except to find the kids a park. Thank you iphone and online reviews you can get in seconds we found Washington Park. It was so nice and very big and had the perfect playground for our little ones. We played until dark, got something to eat and headed on our way. The kids went to sleep and Chris was doing fine driving. He stopped and got a couple of 5 hour energy drinks and when we got to Trinidad he felt he could go further so he just kept on driving. Our next stop was Wichita Falls where we stopped for breakfast and then he took us all the way home. The kids were so great on the whole trip. We had fun as a family and can’t wait to go back.