Category: Photography

For the second year in a row, my uncle and aunt were kind enough to organize a trip to Grand Lake. They get a couple of cabins and we all go up and stay and hang out in the cabin, and do fun stuff on the lake (wakeboarding and water skiing and tubing and such) and whatever else we can dream up. We were lucky enough to have awesome weather and as usual, a great group of people to hang out with. There were three more babies than last year, Miss Tabby being the youngest of the additions and it was neat seeing the little ones interact.

We went for an awesome hike on Saturday, had great food that everyone pitched in to provide, had a wonderful time tubing on the lake on Sunday. Photos, as usual, are here.

Ahh… a nice cop-out post for Friday. Just what I need. I was up too late getting ready for our trip to Granby and crushing those evil Babylonians.

Oh and here is a video of her eating peaches. I'm planning to put up more as I get time. I had forgotten how long their encoding takes. poo.

I know what you're thinking. “I'm so sick of seeing their stupid hiking pictures. Don't they ever do anything else?? How much good clean family fun can one quartet of humans and canines have, anyhow?? Well at least this time there aren't any pictures of that unbelievably cute baby in her pink hat. Thank goodnes for that.”

To which I can only say …
1) Yes, more hiking pictures. And even more here.
2) Lots of other stuff, really … we only hike once a week, sometimes barely that. This week, it was Meyer Ranch. Lovely spot. Gorgeous wildflowers. We here in Co have to make the most of our summers. Winters aren't as bad as some places, but they can get nasty and feel very ong.
3) Here she is … hehe. Continue reading “Weekend Wrap-Up”

We had chosen to stay inside Mesa Verde, so we were right there when we got up the next morning. We paid a short visit to the visitor's center and got tickets to take ranger-guided tours of the more prominent dwellings. Continue reading “Mesa Verde”

Well I finally managed to get all the pictures from this past weekend gathered together, sorted, and uploaded to Flickr. It took a small miracle. Now, about that trip.

We left Denver after work on Thursday and took a long drive to Alimosa, where we stayed the night.

The next morning, after a nice breakfast at our Best Western, we drove out to the Great Sand Dunes National Park. I hadn't been there since I was a kid, but it was absolutely incredible to me. It's so wild to think that in the middle of mountainous state, there's these HUGE piles of sand. The people look like ants on an anthill. We walked around on the dunes, found a bug, played in the mud and the sand and just generally enjoyed ourselves.

After a lovely lunch at the Sand Dunes Oasis, including wonderful PIE, we went back down the road a bit and headed for Zapata Falls. It's a nice short hike with interesting terrain along the way. That leads to a wonderful river that you hike along (and in!) … until you come to a cave … inside there is the waterfall. And it's incredible. So refreshing after a day in the hot hot sun.

After that, we headed further south towards Durango. We got to drive through the gorgeous Rio Grande National Forest, and among other things: see goats, eat icees, have a blow-out (Tabbs, you'll kill me for posting this when you're 16 – but remember – it was daddy who took the picture!!), and admire the scenery. We made it into Mesa Verde late Friday night. More on that later …

Sunday was hike day, of course, but our group doubled in size since we were watching Liam and FeBe and Kelly and Erica tagged along. We went back to Corwina Park which is now officially one of my favorite hikes. You go through such variant terrain and I love the babbling brook that's along the trail for the first mile or so. It was a nice hike made more difficult for me because of the step class I'd attended on Sat. Still nice though.

Afterwards we got ice cream and took the babies home for naps. Soon enough, it was time for Kelly's birthday dinner at The Fort.

And just like that, the weekend was over. Loads more photos here and here. Sorry for the slight darkness in the photos. The camera was set wonky and they were slightly under exposed. I'm too lazy to correct them all though. Just imagine them brighter.

And the tourist fun continues next weekend when we head to Mesa Verde and Sand Dunes.