Pikes Peak or Bust!

For Father's Day I had planned a wonderful trip for our little fam. Ditch church, drive to Colorado Springs...well, why don't we just start at the beginning!!

Colorado Springs is one of the funnest little old/new towns in Colorado. There is so much to do. It might be in part that I live near Denver, and most of the things there are 'old news'. It might be that I love the beautiful rocks around COS (Short for Colorado Springs) - which can easily be explained by my love of rocks.
While living in Manitou Springs, just a few miles west of COS on your way to Woodland Park, or The North Pole, or Pikes Peak, it was explained to me that COS was built as a small community, and 'we like it that way.' Oh. I see. Regardless of said persons snippiness, I fell in love with The Springs. Fresh mountain air. Big red rocks. The sky seemed bluer. The trees greener.
Since my oldest son was little, I've been looking for an excuse to take the family to The Springs for a little visit. We have several friends who live there, but we always seem to be visiting them, rather than visiting the sites...Father's Day was a perfect day to change all that.

Brian had to go along with the idea. Well really, he had no other choice. We are both control freaks, this time I was in the driver's seat (literally, until he decided that he wanted to drive. Alright buddy.)

We started out 'early' Sunday, June 20th. We had good intentions of starting earlier, however, after diaper changes, packing the car, numerous questions by all troops on said adventure, we were off. I must note that this point that Ethan was not feeling the greatest. Turns out he had picked up Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease from a friend. This is part of the adventure (not only in trips, but with children!) so bear with me.
We headed south on I-25. Which foiled Brian's thoughts of going to Rocky Mountain National Park. Remember the barrage of questions? We continued south...Brian figured it out (He is a smart man!), but didn't know where we were going exactly.

Stop 1. King Soopers. If you're not a local, you should know that King Soopers is our local grocery store chain. Like Piggly Wiggly. IGA. Safeway. etc. We should have realized that Ethan needed Tylenol, but neglected to realize this until later; until we returned home in fact. We stopped for a chicken meal, which was a wonderful idea on Brian's part. I, on the other hand, was going to get up early to make sandwiches. King's makes yummy non-MSG rotisserie chicken with cole slaw, and rolls (the kids and I are wheat free, so we opted for Rudy's Spelt Free Bread). Then headed south on Garden of the God's Road, to the Garden of the Gods.

"Stop" 2. We were looking for a picnic table, which was supposed to be just off the road, but we never found it...we did take these wonderful pictures however:

Please note, even if you are from these neck of the woods:
- Take plenty of water, if you are thirsty, you are probably well on your way to being dehydrated.
- Summer in Colorado can be brutal. On this particular day it was in the upper 90's. Dress appropriately.
- Stay away from the wildlife. They are wild. We like them that way.
- And at no point, do deer turn in to elk, or visa versa. It's like asking when a chicken becomes a cow. :)


I digress...we went back to the Welcome Center to eat our lunch (also Brian's suggestion!) They have a wonderful seating area (probably for paying patrons of the restaurant inside, but it was hot and we were hungry) where you can look at the breathtaking view of The Kissing Camels, and Pike's Peak in the background. The rock formations in this area are stunning. We couldn't have asked for a nicer lunch.
Except for the fact that Ethan was not feeling well, didn't eat, didn't drink much. So at this point we bailed on the rest of the trip...we fully intend to finish the trip, either where we left off, or all over again. We had Cheyenne Mountain Zoo on the list, where you can feed giraffes crackers!!! Be sure to bring your camera for this one! It is an expensive zoo, but if you stay in COS, there are coupons, and really the price of admission is well worth it if you plan the day well enough.
Back to Garden of the Gods though. We saw a group getting ready for a guided tour on segways! This would be a MUST if you have older children (think teens).
- GoG has posted a calendar of events, do be sure to check if before you go.
- Ranger talks are a great way to learn about the area, its inhabitants (ie: bats), etc
- They have a Junior Ranger program for Junior to have an activity to do while Mom and Dad do a little hiking (be sure to pack your sunscreen!!). There is a small fee of $2 for the program, but the rest of the park is FREE.

As this is a National Park, please remember to 'pack in, pack out', please don't litter...it makes it nicer when we don't have to pick up other people's trash. :)

Moral of the story? Be flexible. If your child is not having a good day. Call it quits. Have fun another day. :) BTW: Ethan is better. The sickness lasted about a week, and he was his normal self with Tylenol...

Hello old friend...

Goodness, a year since I have posted on this blog. Time flies...

In our summer quest for a little R & R...here are some more 'staycations' we have taken around Colorado. More like day trips.

Please be sure to click 'follow'!!

Top 10 Must-Have Travel Products and Accessories

Clothes. Check. Car filled up with gas. Check. Besides that, what else do you pack? Here are my tried and true fave's! I've provided you with links so you can have one-stop-shopping! :)

10. Auto Power Inverter . Not your cell phone charger, but make sure to pack that too! Are you taking your laptop, or another electronic that normally plugs into the wall? Plug it into your car's cigarette lighter!! Brian and I purchased one of these a few months ago (not for traveling, necessarily), but it work REALLY well!

9. Koolatron Voyager Thermoelectric Cooler - P-27. Ok so that's the technical name, but it's a must have. You'll save a bundle on eating out by packing your own meals. More about that in a bit. This also plugs into the cigarette lighter, so you'll have to share it with the power inverter.

8. Booklight. Whether you are a bookworm, or the kids are sleeping in the back seat and you don't want to wake them with the overhead light, etc. This will come in so handy. Really, go ahead! Pick one up!

7. GPS. Whether you are a walking GPS or not, make sure that you have one for the times you can't remember which side of the tree moss grows on. What did we do before GPS? These also come in very handy for geo-caching. :)

6. Pack your own pillow. Brian and I took a trip up to a timeshare resort in the mountians. As we were packing I thought, "I'm going to leave my pillow. I'm sure they have nice pillows." Brian asked if he should take his, and I said, "Yes. YOU should take your pillow, but I'm sure their pillows are comfy." This was NOT the Ritz Carlton, and I SHOULD have brought my pillow. So. ALWAYS bring yours!!

5. Keen's. This suggestion came from a friend. They are great for water or land! :) I like sandals or Dansko's - something that slips on and off easily.

4. Food. Pack your own food. It's much cheaper than eating out, and there is more variety - how many dollar meals can you stomach? EVERY city and town have grocery stores. Besides sandwiches, what can you take? Shake and bake chicken, eggs, carrot slices, crackers, fruit, etc.

3. Books. Or books on tape. The Library is a great place for these. They even have DVD's you can check out. I remember road trips with my family when I was growing up, and my mom would read for hours. Wind in the Willow, Homer's Odyssey, great classics! One space saving tip is a book with lots of other books in it. One of our favorites is The 20th-Century Children's Book Treasury: Picture Books and Stories to Read Aloud

2. Passport To Adventure (Adventures in Odyssey) I cannot say enough about Adventures in Odyssey. Generally these are geared toward kids, but the adults in the family also love these. They are GREAT stories, teach GREAT values, family friendly, you won't worry about bad words or bad ideas being passed on to your kids. They may lead to great family discussion too!

1. A sense of humor. When you are road trippin' it, especially with kids, arguments are bound to come up. Remember to take a deep breath. :) You are going to have a great trip!!

Glenwood Springs, Aspen and Maroon Bells

Glenwood Springs. The name conjures up images of soaking in the natural hot springs, steam billowing about – even on the hottest day of the year. As many of us take vacations in the summer months, you can rest assured that there is more to do in the Glenwood Springs area than soaking in the hot pool. While there is science behind drinking a warm drink on a hot day, I’m not likely to sit in a hot pool on a hot day. However I’m jumping ahead of the adventure.

This one started in Denver, Union Station to be exact. We took the California Zephyr from Denver to Glenwood Springs (it’s interesting to note, that this train also stops in Winter Park and Grandby – but if you get off, you’re not getting back on to go to Glenwood.) We departed at 8:05 am with all our worldly possessions, and absolutely bare necessities when traveling with a youngster. Luckily for us, there are/were not limitations on bags for baby “paraphernalia” – ie: stroller (not the umbrella stroller that is positively useless for any person taller than 5 feet tall – of which I am much taller than that), play pen, car seat, etc. This sure beats traveling by plane in which you are restricted to taking less than the bare essentials. Thankfully, we were traveling with the whole fam again (Gigi, and Poppie, my brother and his wife, and my youngest brother. Of course my husband and son were there too!) so all hands were on deck, so to speak, to help out with a tuckered out little boy, or all of the things that MUST be carried.
We arrived in Glenwood at a little before 2 pm.
WHAT?! 6 hours for a 2 hour trip – yes! NO traffic, we weren’t driving, we could r-e-l-a-x and truly enjoy the scenery, read a book, take a nap, chat with other travelers, or my favorite: get up and stretch your legs (you can’t do that in a moving vehicle). We left on a Saturday, which members of a Colorado train history group will share stories of the whos and the whats. Many apologies, I don’t know which group was on this train. Someone please let me know!
Back to my story. We got off the train, and on to the rest of our adventure.
Glenwood Springs has a great transit system, which delivered us practically to our hotel. Sidenote: I promised to give the good and the bad, exactly what we did on our trip so, I’m not ‘making for a good story’ – this is the truth. I would not recommend the hotel we stayed in – it was cheap (in more ways than one), and a safe place to stay, but it was waaaaay out of town, the hot breakfast they claimed to have was nothing more than hot water provided for instant oatmeal. If I did this trip again, I would prefer to stay at either the Hotel Colorado, the Ramada Inn, or the Holiday Inn Express – these are also on the bus line and very easy to get to.
Once we set foot in Glenwood, my dad called Enterprise to confirm our cars, which had been reserved before the trip. Yep, they had them. He let them know we’d be there with in the hour. We took our bags to the hotel, and called Enterprise to “pick us up”. They let us down. With a thunk. The cars that we had confirmed just minutes before had been rented!!! Kid you not. 8 people stranded with out a car. They quipped that they, “didn’t think we were coming,” so they rented them out to the next people to walk through the door. They were kind enough to ‘find’ other cars for us in Aspen. The deal was that we had to return them to Aspen…then find our way back to Glenwood – so much for a courtesy shuttle service. While Poppie and my husband fetched the cars (literally), the rest of us grabbed dinner (this part has been erased from my memory). Unfortunately because of this blip, this was the end of day 1.


After a restful night’s sleep, and a warm shower, we were ready to take advantage of the day! We hiked Hanging Lake, which took a few hours, but was well worth it! Be sure to take your time, and listen to your body. If it’s telling you to stop and rest, do so. Make sure you take lots of water. Most importantly, if you are coming from sea level, be sure to give your body time to acclimate to the elevation – a day or so. After having a baby nearly two years prior to this trip, I was VERY out of shape. People coming down from the hidden lake were very encouraging: “Keep going! It’s worth the hike.” Step by step. It WAS so worth it!
After basking in the glory of the lake – pictures don’t do it justice – we headed back to the hotel for a nap for my little boy, followed by a quick cache in Carbondale, then dinner at Nepal Restaurant.
I am salivating just thinking about the wonderful food – my taste buds are dancing! I always have lamb something. This time was Lamb Korma. YUM! This was the second time I ate here, and the third for my parents. We decided it is a MUST when going to Glenwood Springs.
Day 2. Trip to Aspen and Maroon Bells. By the time we got to Maroon Bells, Ethan was tired and my mom and I wandered around the lake, while my husband and the rest of the gang hiked up closer to the mountains.
After the Bells, we had a picnic lunch in Aspen at a park. Picnics are a must when traveling, especially with a little one. There is nothing quite like an al fresco lunch to clear the mind, and renew the spirit. Try it, I think you'll like it!
Brian and I really like wandering around mountain towns with a cup of Starbucks coffee in our hands…So that is exactly what we did in Aspen. There was a little gallery (there are several) that was exhibiting their art outside the gallery. I’m naturally drawn to art, so we lolly gagged there for a little while. If you go in the summer, there are water fountains in the street for kids to play in. According to a local mom I met up there, it’s a hot spot for the other mommies to take their kiddos to hang out. Of course my parents went off to geo cache, while the rest of us wandered.
We called the day short as we had to return the cars to the Enterprise in Aspen. The saga continued. I’ll spare you the details, but tell you that we had to haul all the baby paraphernalia back on the bus (sans-AC) to Glenwood Springs. I sincerely hope that Enterprise will learn from our mistake and not rent out other family’s cars. But we didn’t die, it just made for a long day.

Day 3. Head home. After a dramatic, but very fun trip, we headed home. We all napped on the train ride home. Watched a beautiful sunset. My brother and sister in law met some young people, associated with Al Gore somehow, who were going to Berry Patch Farms (not far from where we live) to pick organic berries. We played cards with some of the train crew.

Thanks for the great memories Glenwood! Of course we’ll come again!

Who knew that a great vacation would be only a few hours from Denver? Who knew we’d have FUN without the mountains in view?! We didn’t but, boy, we had a blast!
It all started last year reading the news online. I sent a quick email to my mom, who loves geo-caching. I thought she and my dad would enjoy geo-caching east of Denver. Little did I know she was thinking it would make a GREAT trip!?!

So, my brother and his wife, my youngest brother, my parents, and my little family all packed our cars and headed east for a 2 day trip!

We started Friday night at The Craig Ranch Bed and Breakfast in Limon, Colorado. This is a working ranch and B&B. My mom had let The Craig’s (yes, the owners) know about our little cow poke prior to our arrival. In our bedroom, Beth made a little bed on the floor for our son – she even provided a few books for us to read to him! :) The bed was super comfy, and feather pillows! We awoke to a FULL breakfast – not a namby pamby city folk breakfast. It was the kind that will stick to your bones!! Just what we needed! I have a wheat allergy, Beth went out of her way to make pancakes I could eat.

My son was very excited about tractors on the ranch. The Craig’s were more than willing to let him crawl around on a tractor – a perfect photo opp. Beth is also a spinner! (not the bicycle kind – the yarn kind!) She gave us all a lesson on spinning, she made the wool into beautiful yarn like butter. Then she challenged each of us to try. Boy, it was tough!

First stop of the day: Limon Heritage Museum. This little gem has trains to climb on, model trains to woo any 3 year old, a one room school house (perfect for the teacher in our family). On the particular day we went, there were a couple events going on – a quilt show in the senior center, and many folks from the city to make a ‘fair’. :) I don’t recall all the details of what we saw at this stop. The train museum was a highlight for us as my grandmother went to High School in Limon, and my great grandfather worked on the railroad at the same time. We thought it would be a treasure to find a picture of him in the train museum, but sadly we didn’t.

We stopped for lunch (and celebrated birthdays) at the park south of the Kit Carson Carousel on 15th and Webster. There are great shade trees and a marvelous park (also under the shade trees) – EVEN on one of the hottest days of the summer! (it was about 104F – and I was pregnant with our second child. Whew!). Make sure to pack a picnic lunch! It was a blast to open presents and hang out.

On to our featured stop! The Kit Carson Carousel!! This is a definite MUST on your eastern Colorado trip! At 25 cents to ride the carousel, the price couldn’t be beat! At one of 150 surviving wooden carousels, one must pay homage to this marvelous treat. It is one of the fastest carousels (at 12 mph!) and was originally carved for Elitch Gardens in 1905. It has a interesting history, but you must go to discover it!!!

The heat did take it out of us, so we grabbed a fun icy treat at the local McDonald’s on the way out of town. Then we headed home – mom and dad went a different route so they could geo-cache. We went back to the foothills so our lil’ cowpoke could sleep in his own bed.
Goodbye eastern Colorado! It was fun!! We’ll have to do it again!

Some tips and tricks:
* Plan more and nix along the way. We had a few more stops planned, but decided not to do them for various reasons. It was better for us to spend time as a family than to make every stop along the way.

* Plan ahead. Do you remember you mom telling you, “Measure twice, cut once.” Yeah that applies to traveling too! We picked up a marvelous guide to eastern Colorado. It details all the events going on, the attractions, museums, etc. Do be sure to pick it up! There were waaaaaaay more things than what we did on this trip!

* Slow down and enjoy. You don’t have to get everything done on one trip! Spend time with your family, take lots of pictures and laugh!!

* If you are going to eastern Colorado in the summer, be sure to pack your cell phone, and plenty of water! It was really hot. :)

Awesome Vacations and Staycations

I've lived in Colorado for 20+ years. I'm not a native, but darn close. :)
Every year my husband and I have the conversation that goes something like this: "When should we take a vacation?" "I don't know" "Where should we go?" "I don't know." Sound familiar? Perhaps the same thing happens in your family too?
I realized earlier this summer there are great places to go see around Denver, or the state that may be common place for those of us who have lived here for a long time - but we may not have ever gone.
We have a family with 2 small kids - the oldest is 4, and the youngest is 8 months. Our vacations have to be F-U-N for everyone involved. The vacations/staycations I'm sharing here are tested by our family.
Be on the look out for our most favorite trips.
TIP: If you live in Colorado, many of these trips can be made into day trips. I'll add places to picnic, or what we did (to the letter), who will enjoy the trip!