We have quite a tight schedule this summer, but we managed to squeeze in a fun family vacation in between sessions of day camp, scout camp, and other various summer programs.
When planning our trips for this year, we had thought of doing Disney and D.C., but after looking over our finances and realizing we live in one of the most incredible states in the nation, we decided to spend our summer a bit closer to home. There is so much to see and do here! It will probably take me more than a single blog post to get through it all...there are so many good pictures!!
We started off early Sunday morning. After dropping Kirby off at his Country Club for the week, we headed south.
For those of you planning long road trips of your own this summer, look at your local library for these beauties:
They are called Playaways. They are basically little MP3 players preloaded with books on tape. Well, not really on tape--in a digital form. Anyway, we borrowed about 437 of them from the library and my kids were completely silent on the entire trip. Like 12+ hours of driving without a single movie played or a single fight. Silence. BEST. INVENTION. EVER.
I tried very hard to make this trip not just about the destination, but also about the journey. So our first stop was Salida, Colorado where we visited the fish hatchery. Fish hatchery??? Seriously?? Yeah, that is what I said, too. But the kids LOVED it! After watching an informative video about fish in Colorado, we got to take a bucket of fish food out to the raceways and feed the fish. As soon as the fish saw us coming, they started swarming. It was really quite entertaining. They were so excited to eat, they were jumping up and splashing us. Definite fish frenzy. We could have kept feeding those fish all day. But we had other places to go and things to see.
On we went to St. Elmo, a real live (or dead...) ghost town. I was unsure if this stop would be worth it, because it added quite a bit of driving time to our trip, but I am so glad we went. First of all, it was up a canyon that had to be one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. We were in awe--the Aspen groves were huge and incredible. I couldn't even begin to capture the beauty on film.
Secondly the ghost town was SO COOL!!!! I really love old things, so this was right up my alley. It was exactly what you would expect from a ghost town--the houses and stores were literally just deserted some 125+ years ago. You could look in the windows and see the wallpaper they had and the pictures on the walls. A few of the buildings had been restored but for the most part they weren't and I think that was much more interesting. I loved it!
The final highlight of our detour into the mountains was the Squirrel/Chipmunk attraction. Right across from the general store/gift shop was a little area where you could feed the critters. The kids had a blast! I think I took at least 100 pictures of it. I will spare you all of them--here is just a taste!
Lincoln did get bit twice--so we are monitoring him for signs of rabies or hantavirus. I guess that is just a risk you have to take when feeding rodents.
And all of you Phineas and Ferb lovers KNOW what song we were all singing!! S.I.M.P.! Squirrels in my pants!
After dragging the kids away from St. Elmo, we forged on to our final destination--Great Sand Dunes National Park. As we got farther away from the incredibly beautiful canyon and nearer our campsite I started to get really, really worried. The landscape just kept getting uglier and uglier. It was looking a lot like Arizona, without the saguaro cacti. And if you know me at all, you know how I feel about Arizona. I thought I had signed my family up for a week of camping in hell.
We finally spotted the dunes in the distance. See them?
And closer...
Luckily, the vegetation started getting better again and we were pleasantly surprised with our campsite in the mountains, just a short walk from the dunes.
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