Wrap up of Colorado

I got behind on this thing, so apologies for being so late getting this one out, and hopefully I didn't forget anything too interesting while I'm catching up.

As our time in Colorado started to wind down Justin and I found ourselves cramming in everything we could in the time we had left.  I'm just going to throw some pictures in here from our last few trips since this has largely kind of turned into my travel blog.  The first is a hike we did at the Air Force Academy.  It was allegedly only 5 miles roundtrip, but then our GPS said it ended up being more like 7.  When we got to the trailhead we discovered that we had forgotten one of the baby carriers.  So Ivan rode in the back pack, and Vivian hiked.

She was uncertain about doing this hike until I told her she could use a pole.  Game changer.

She had to be carried part of the way, but for the vast majority of the this hike she was on her own two feet.  We were very impressed.

This hike was a lot harder than we had expected.

 There was a portion where we had to climb up a waterfall, and since I had previously put a little fear in her about staying away from rivers, she was kind of a mess, terrified of being washed away, but we managed to get her through it.  She's an amazing little hiker, and her dad was beaming with pride by the time we made it back to the car.  She was asleep before we made it out of the parking lot.

The first part of the water fall we had to climb

At the top.  It wasn't a huge deal, but she hated it.

Ivan, trying to block it all out.

Our next hike was Pancake Rocks, and the name alone had Vivian completely sold.  I was a lot less interested in this hike.  It was long, I was tired, and feeling kind of lazy that day, but thankfully my alternative was the couch of a 1-bedroom extended stay hotel, so off we went.  This hike went up over 11,000 feet, so I was huffing and puffing quite a bit.  Justin hauled Vivian in the backpack to get in his practice for ruck marching.  It was a fun outing, the best part was watching Vivian play on the rocks with her dad.  We returned to our car in the middle of a rainstorm, wet and tired, and happy to have spent the day outside together.

We decided to skip 4th of July festivities, and were feeling sort of Grinchy about the whole thing, what with crowds and clogged freeways.  We left town and spent the day exploring the Spanish Peaks.  On the way home we decided to stop in Pueblo for dinner on their river walk.  Turns out they do a fireworks show there, so we ended up doing fireworks after all, and it was perfect.

We want to camp here some day when I learn how to fish.

I tried to squat down next to her standing, but she copied my pose.

It wasn't the biggest or best fireworks show out there, but we loved it.

Our last outing in Colorado may have been our most memorable.  We threw together a last minute plan to visit Rocky Mountain National Park.  For some reason my expectations for this park had been pretty low.  I was sure that it wouldn't live up to the hype.  It did.  Our first stop was at a lake that was so beautiful that I felt like pinching myself to make sure it was real.  We visited a few other lakes, and then made our way from the east side of the park to the west over a mountain range that climbed to 12,000 feet in elevation.  At the peak I made an idiot decision to run stairs to the very top.  Run them, not walk.  I only made it halfway, and even then I felt all weird and sick for a good 45 minutes afterwards.  Aside from that we had a great time, and enjoyed a weekend in a park that we rank in our top five favorites.

This was at the top of the stairs that I ran up, halfway.

The stairs, don't run them.  Turns out that whole business about just taking it easy at high altitudes is wise.

Justin got so much closer to this cow and her calf than I would have liked, he even admits it was making him nervous. 

A huge herd of elk.

My cute baby boy.

After that our time ran out.  We packed up, and without even a little bit of remorse, vacated the extended stay hotel and headed for home.  We split the trip up into two days, and spent the night in Granby, Colorado.  We squeezed in a little hike early the next morning.

She wanted to wade.  Justin said the water was miserable cold.

Waiting for their feet to dry.

We found ourselves back in Logan late Thursday night.  Friday we spent the day unpacking and recovering, and Saturday we spent the day packing.  Early Sunday morning we drove Justin to the airport and dropped him off for a month long training in Ft. Knox, Kentucky.  I continued on to Orem with the kids for a visit with my family.