July 2008
Colorado Vacation
Lake City
Papaw & Grandma's House
A little background...Last year, Lindsey's dad retired from 17 years of service with USAA in San Antonio, TX. For years, he and his wife, Shelby, had dreamed of retiring in their favorite place on the planet - Lake City, Colorado. They even purchased property several years ago to help put their plan into motion. After officially retiring in February of 2007, they sold their SA home and moved into their new CO residence in September of the same year. Last winter brought the most snow the area had seen in 20 years...but they survived and are now living the dream! We decided we needed to see their own slice of heaven this summer and took the girls on a road trip adventure to The Silver State. A brief trip journal follows...
Friday, 7/18: On the road EARLY because, by golly, we're going to make it there in one day. The kids do great and in 14 hours, we only stop 3 times. First stop - Dumas, TX just for gas and potty break. We've packed our own lunch. :) Second stop - Clayton, NM for a geocache. This stop really shouldn't even count because there was no bathroom. But we added another state to our geocaching stats....that's the MOST important thing. Third stop - Alamosa, CO for dinner and potty break. The last 75 miles into LC are brutal...all mountain roads and we are TIRED....especially the driver. We would later refer to Lake City as MONAFS....meaning "middle of nowhere and further still" because at that hour, that's what it felt like.
Saturday, 7/19: Rest and recover from the day before. Schuyler and I don't sleep well and have headaches all day. LC is at 9000 ft. The kids are unfazed. Figures. Papaw makes "puppy" pancakes for the girls. I have no idea how he does that on a griddle. They play with the menagerie of pets all day and meet the neighbor's grandkids. We enjoy a few walks in the neighborhood and town. I get to go on an EMT run with my dad, literally 1 block from the store we're shopping at. Just an elderly man who feinted but ended up being fine...not very exciting, but I couldn't have handled any blood anyway. Schuyler decides we need to get out of the house, so he and I head out on a geocaching adventure. We take Papaw's 4x4 truck up the mountains and are not sure the truck is going to make it up the trail (come to find out, this road is nothing compared to the roads we encounter on Monday...). About 100 feet from the cache, we find a stream crossing and....MUGGLES! How could this be? We're in the middle of nowhere! We wait for the hikers to get their shoes back on after crossing the stream and finally leave. Then Schuyler crosses the same stream on a makeshift log bridge (nice balancing act!) and searches for ground-zero. I'm not brave enough to cross the stream, so after he disappears into the woods, I take pictures, I'm surprised by two SUVs that appear from around the bend to cross the stream, and I try unsuccessfully to thwart off big, pesky CO flies. After about 10 minutes (eternity!), Schuyler reappears triumphant from his hunt - "log as found". We continue our journey to find another cache - no streams this time, just a steep hill and a nice, hidden waterfall.
Sunday, 7/20: We attend a quaint Presbyterian church with my parents for morning worship, then just hang out for the afternoon. The kids paint rocks with the neighbors (guess who painted the tornado), then we explore one of the town's playgrounds and throw rocks (not the painted ones) along the shore of Lake San Cristobal. Papaw shows us another cool waterfall. He almost has to perform his EMT training on me...I have a near-heart attack when Bethany peers over the cliff edge close to the waterfall (no barriers). At this point, I'm thankful Caroline is asleep in the truck. Schuyler helps my dad with his fence project. For the most part, we enjoy the cool mountain air and scenery just hanging out around the house.
Monday, 7/21: THE Alpine Loop Expedition. Onward, ho! Check out the Alpine Loop webpage for more info. In a nutshell, 45+ miles of 4x4-only mountain roads, with two high altitude passes. We drive to American Basin first. The wildflowers it is famous for are almost peaking - beautiful. We enjoy a little hiking, playing in the snow and devouring a picnic lunch. Next stop, Cinnamon Pass. Schuyler has his sights set on a geocache hidden above the pass. We all trek up the hill, but the girls get tired and whiny quick. Schuyler and Papaw continue on to find his highest-altitude cache - 12,900 feet. The girls and I find more snow to play in. We then wind down the mountain to the Animas Forks ghost town - a busy place for ATVs and traffic coming up from Silverton. The kids have a great time exploring the buildings of this old mining town, particularly the hotel. Schuyler rounds up a few more caches, including one I help him with at the top of a hill...no small task at this altitude. We opt not to go into Silverton and continue on the loop toward Engineer Pass. The roads are narrow and rocky, the drop-offs are steep and meeting a vehicle coming the other direction is tricky, at best. Neither of the kids like being on the "outside". Just before the pass, Papaw decides to follow a side road out to a near-360 degree vista point. Completely disinterested and on edge, the kids stay in the truck in tears, while the rest of us check it out. Not one of the trip's finer moments. We quickly journey on and take a picture of the Engineer Pass sign...no stopping. We do stop, however, when the snow pack on the inside of the road is higher than the truck. The girls are always entertained by snow, so this stop is OK. Throughout the day, we are on the lookout for wildlife, but all we can come up with this time are a few marmots. (I didn't know what they were, either.) We arrive back at the house around 4:30 pm. What an exhausting, yet invigorating day. We've never had an experience quite like this before. We top the day with ice cream cones at the local soda fountain, THE happening place to be in the evenings. Yummy!
Tuesday, 7/22: Still trying to recover from the day before....The girls decide to play in the sprinkler in the back yard. (No swimming pools to be found in this town.) We find another playground in the afternoon, walk along the river (with a few unexpected friends), and then go on a mine tour. The Hard Tack Mine is not far from Lake City and our tour is educational for all of us. It helps that the tour guide is from San Angelo (!). The kids think it's cool to wear a special hard hat and coat. Even with the coat, Caroline is shivering by the time the 45-minute tour ended. Surprisingly, Schuyler didn't even have to duck while we were in there. The mine tour was a true highlight of the entire trip for the girls (even if they don't look excited in the picture). If you ask them about Colorado even now, they'll likely mention the mine tour out of everything we did that week. Go figure. Schuyler made arrangements for just he and I to go out to dinner on our own this night. The small restaurant was nice, and the food was good, but the most memorable part of the evening was when someone yelled "Bear!" and the entire restaurant cleared (including the waitstaff) to look out the windows to see a bear running through town. Schuyler and I barely got a glimpse, but we chuckled at the two gals who tore out the door, got in their car and went after the bear. They came back 20 minutes later, victorious in their quest, and showed other patrons the pictures on their camera. They obviously weren't locals.
Wednesday, 7/23: Having acclimated to the altitude, Schuyler decides to take off after a local cache he has been putting off because he knows it was going to be difficult. He plots his course, packs up his gear, and takes off. About 2 hours later, we get a phone call from him at the house. He instructs us to go out on the back deck so he can see us. We have to pull out binoculars and a telescope to see him because he is 1000 ft up the mountain overlooking the town. Quite a hike...at least he followed a tip from the website to approach it from the north and not straight up the side of the mountain. And yes, he did find the little box he was looking for and signed his name for all posterity. What a rush! It will be one of his most memorable cache finds. Inspired by Daddy's hike, the girls, Papaw and I (plus the two dogs) make a trek of our own. The girls do a great job following a steep trail up a different mountain....Caroline plowing ahead in the lead. We enjoy some nice views of the town, but when the girls have reached their limit, that's it. Papaw heads back down with them, and I take one of the dogs with me further up the hill.
Thursday, 7/24: As the week progresses, we change our itinerary and decide to meet up with a few friends in Oklahoma City. So, we get an early start this day to drive 11 hours to a nice Hampton Inn, just an hour west of OKC. The kids love staying in hotels because it usually means they get to go SWIMMING! Since we didn't swim in CO, they were more than ready to dive in.
Friday, 7/25: We make arrangements to meet my old college roommate, Kirstin, at the National OKC Memorial downtown. She's been living in the suburbs for over a year, but has never been there. It is a moving experience, probably for me the most. We have to explain to the kids beforehand what it all means. Bethany somewhat understands 9/11, so we can make a comparison. If you ever get the chance to go to OKC, you must see the memorial. We tarry outside for a while, but opt not to do the museum. The kids wouldn't get much out of it and we don't have time. Kirstin, the kids and I head over to the Brickyard to meet her parents and kids for lunch. Schuyler has his own adventure getting a CAC card for work. I have a great time catching up with my friend, visiting with her parents and getting to know her kids. After lunch, Schuyler picks us up and we drop by another's friend's house south of town. Karol was a part of Schuyler's Madagascar group and I knew her a little at A&M. We have kept up with her over the years, but haven't seen her at all since we've been in McKinney. She's married now with 3 girls (all younger than Caroline) and residing in OKC while her husband finishes his residency. We visited with her for several hours while all the girls happily played together. Then, finally, a quick 3-hour drive HOME!
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