The Lost Year- Colorado: The Road Home

My parents and the rest of my family left earlier than the rest of the gang since we arrived a day earlier.  On the way home, we tried to cram in as much as we could, so we made stops at Monarch Pass, Salida, Garden of the Gods, and tried to stop at Royal Gorge.  As a result, we left Colorado pretty darn late in the day, so we only made it about halfway across Kansas before we stopped at a hotel.  Totally worth the delay, though.  We saw lots of great sights!

At the Continental Divide

The view

Charlotte and her binoculars

Audrey's 'tude followed us all the way home.  She tests me...

Watching the kayaks on the river at lunch.

Charlotte and her treasure box.  Definitely a good choice for a souvenir.

An elusive smile.

Charlotte's pose

The reason we couldn't actually see the Royal Gorge.  A forest fire had taken out all the buildings, including the entry to the bridge where you have to pay, so since the owners couldn't collect, they blocked off all access points to the outer rim.  So this is all we aw of the Royal Gorge.

Garden of the Gods- the Balancing Rock

Matt and the girls.  Cute, right?

Me and the girls.  Not so cute.

A slightly better picture.

The Lost Year- Colorado: The Hike, Take Two

The Van Nests, Matt, and I all wanted to take another hike, but weren't sure if we wanted to do a summit hike or try the waterfall hike again since we never actually hiked on the trail.  It was so pretty and we wanted to see if we would get closer to bigger waterfalls.  Ultimately we decided to take the same hike again, but this time my dad, aunt Shirley and Audrey joined us.  It was just as beautiful as it was the day before.  We never did get up close to the larger waterfall that we kept seeing from a distance, but it was my first valley hike and it was so neat to hike along the river between two mountains.  I just love this state.

Audrey, right after Matt told her he would carry her across the river and she refused.

Audrey, right after she realized the river was cold.

And Audrey, getting carried across the cold river to start the hike.

Audrey was a pretty good little hiker.  She made it almost all the way to the trail head on her own.

At the top, waiting for my dad, Shirley and Scott to meet up with us.  They took the trail that went right be the waterfalls, but since we had Audrey, we decided to just hike up the access road.

Still some pretty amazing views from the access road.

From the trail head.

Audrey started to have a bit of a rough time.  She was tired and she had outgrown the backpack, so she wasn't super comfortable.

Pretty telling of her attitude at that point.

We got her out and down by the water, though, and she perked up quite a bit.  Particularly after Matt told her he would carry her on his shoulders for awhile.

Into the valley

My mountain girl.

Lunch!

We had lunch at this really cool lookout over a waterfall.  About this time, though, we realized that a storm was coming and we were pretty exposed.  We booked it back to cover and made it before the thunder and lightening got bad, but Matthew's fear of being struck by lightening outweighed my desire to document the experience, so the pictures ended here.  Despite that, I think this may have been one of my all time favorite Colorado hikes.  Definitely top 5.  It was just amazingly beautiful.

The Lost Year- Colorado: Hiking with the Van Nests

The next day Matt and I attempted to recruit some hikers.  The Van Nests were game, so we left the girls with Grandma and Grandpa and we hit the trail, this time with the idea we'd see waterfalls.  We had another adventure trying to find the trail head, but eventually made it to the starting point.  The guidebook failed to mention the river we would have to walk across to get to the trail  head.  Seriously, the guidebooks were seriously lacking.  Matt and I decided that we would write our own.  Talk about a great excuse to get out to Colorado frequently!

The hike was beautiful.  It was seriously one of the prettiest hikes I have ever been on.  I loved every minute and I'm so glad the Van Nests came with us.  I didn't want to hike with my good camera, so all the pictures are from my phone, but they didn't turn out to badly.

Hiking with Aunt Robbie

The girls walking in the river

First real waterfall

This was probably the third or fourth waterfall.  There were so many!  It was just amazing.

My favorite spot on the hike.  It was this little alcove that made this neat bend in the river.  It was almost a right angle.

At the actual trail head.  We had to hike a ways up an access "road", but found a trail that someone had forged along the river.  The actual trail didn't start for over a mile up the hill.  We ended up having to turn around because we needed to meet up with the rest of the crew in Crested Butte as they were going horseback riding that afternoon.

I thought the little red outhouse was too cute.  This was at the ranch.  Derek was big enough to go on the horse, but my girls were not.  Matt and I stayed back with the littles while the rest of the crew hit the trail.  Charlotte wasn't super thrilled, but we promised her a pony ride when she was big enough.  She ended up being able to ride a horse at Deanna Rose Farm in Kansas City later this summer.

Petting on of the horses.  He was awfully sweet.

"Helping" poor Drew walk.

Stole this picture from my aunt Shirley.  The gang lined up.  It just cracks me up.  One of the horses was a movie star; my dad's horse was one of the horses they used in the new Lone Ranger movie.  Pretty cool!

The girls tuckered out after fun times with Derek in the hot tub.

Evidence that it truly was a Hopmann family get together- cards!