In Glenwood

Yesterday, after a long day, we arrived in Glenwood Springs, one of my favorite places in all the "vurld" (as our Rome tour guide said).  On our way to Glenwood we stopped and hiked the Hanging Lake trail and saw Hanging Lake as well as Spouting Rock (basically, water worked it way through a boulder and now water comes out of it as if it's a waterfall.  All the kids did a good job on this tough hike and are turning into hikers. I'm really proud of Eli; he's always asking if he can carry a bag or help out in some way.  That kid is like a pack mule.

Iker the Hiker

There goes the 60 year old Bec who needs a hip replacement.

A view from the hike.  That's the Colorado River in the bottom.

Hanging Lake

Spouting Rock

Today we went to Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park.  Basically, a long time ago, a guy found caves on top of a mountain above Glenwood Springs.  Over time, he developed it into a business taking folks on tours.  This was back in the age of women in long dresses and men in suits exploring the caverns.  Two centuries later, there are still cave tours, a few rides, a restaurant, and lots of fun things for the kiddies to do in a mining/wild west theme.  And, as you are on top of a mountain, the views are something else.  You also have to take a gondola to get up there.

Taken at Glenwood Caverns with the city of Glenwood Springs below.

After spending the day there, we headed about 20 minutes out of town to have dinner with Mom's cousin Maggie and her cousin Rick.  They're great and it's always good to see them.

On the agenda for tomorrow morning is whitewater rafting on the Colorado River.  Then the afternoon is wide open.  We may hit the Hot Springs Pool, go hiking, have the kids catch up on their napping, do a little geocaching, or who knows what.  Glenwood is the home of Doc Holiday's grave and that's a short easy hike so maybe we'll see that.  In the evening, we plan on ordering in some pizza and watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics.

Blogging Twitter-Style

Waterpark today.
Very tired.
Fun was had by all.
See pics below.
Into the mountains tomorrow.

Caching out

Today we had to make a few changes to the itinerary.  The plan was to go to the Denver Zoo today but the 100 degree heat and some little ones who needed to catch up on their napping resulted in a change of plans. Instead, this morning, we rode bikes, went to the park down the road, played a little ball, and introduced the kids to geo-caching.  After our first cache, the older two boys were hooked.  After lunch, Caleb, Eli, Dad, and I searched for two more caches including one under a bridge that had lots of trinkets in it.  After that, they were determined to make their own caches to hide.  So, as nap time was still in full effect, the four of us headed to the Family Dollar to get some containers and trinkets.  When we got back, we assembled our caches and asked Kari for some paper to make a log sheet for each cache. (For those not familiar with geo-caching, normally there is a little log sheet in the cache where you can write your name and the date.)  Kari gave us some choices of paper and we were lucky that one of them happened to be my Grandma Pearl's old Eastern Star Stationary.  That was an easy choice.  Later on, we hid one of the four caches we made in a local park.  It will soon be up on this website.  If you've never been geo-caching, give it a try.  It gets you up and moving and who doesn't love looking for hidden treasure.

Again, this afternoon, we decided to hit the pool.  Granted tomorrow's itinerary says Water Park but when it's hot, the wetter the better.  So this time we took a little bigger group, a few of the older generation, a few of the youngest.  This local pool does have two water slides and we got Grammy and Papa to go down a few times which the kids loved.  Most of the time, it seems like the kids don't even notice that Grammy and Papa are a little older.  Perhaps this is because, as everyone should, Grammy and Papa refuse to act older.  Grammy is bound and determined to hit a zipline on this trip and already did a very challenging hike.  Not too shabby for the lady who turned 60 last week and needs a new hip.  As Ike recently said, "Grammy, you ol' grandma!"

On an unrelated note, my brother-in-law said that the pile of shoes at the door makes it look like we brought all of Wheatfield with us.