Our last blog described the family hikes that we took with our group of eleven hikers in the Keystone, Colorado area. But we knew that the more hard-core hikers were hoping for a more rigorous hiking experience in these beautiful mountains. So we decided to split our group into hikers and shoppers. The hikers headed out early to the trail head for Willow Falls. Mark took this picture of his group enjoying some beautiful scenery.
Meanwhile, the shoppers have driven to Breckenridge. Denisa took this picture of her group enjoying some beautiful pastries.
To get to their destination, the hikers navigated their way through the burnt trunks from the fire that burned here in 2018.
To get to their destination, the shoppers navigated their way through the streets of Breckenridge with masks because of the virus that started in 2019.
When the hikers made it to the waterfall, they took pictures at the water feature.
When the shoppers made it to the river flowing through Breckenridge, they took pictures at the water feature.
Those shoppers took lots of pictures at the water feature!
Denisa was a little surprised when Mark took the time to take a picture of the beautiful columbines on the hiker's trek.
Denisa was not surprised when the shoppers took flower pictures on their trek.
This little shopper was even hugging and patting the flowers.
Sometimes the hikers had to navigate difficult obstacles. If you look closely at that big rock wall . . .
you can see Luke and Blake crawling up that narrow crevice.
Sometimes the shoppers had to navigate difficult obstacles. If you look closely, you will see that Carter is tracking some really big foot prints!
The shoppers followed those big foot prints into the woods on the Trollstigen Trail. How scary is this?
The hikers found themselves in at least one scary situation. Mark and his sons decided to do a little rock scrambling to get to a higher view. Don't you know that Mark is loving hanging out with adventurous hikers when he is used to having Denisa as his hiking buddy?
When Luke and Mark were looking for an alternate route down from the top, Luke found himself skidding off the side.
Again, we zoom in on the hikers trying to get out of that scary situation. Maybe Mark is better off hiking with Denisa rather than these crazy guys!?!
Sometimes the hikers found unexpected things in the forest that were almost twenty feet tall.
Likewise, the shoppers found an unexpected thing in the forest that was almost twenty feet tall.
This troll was built for the International art fair in Breckenridge several years ago, and has become a favorite tourist stop. The shoppers enjoyed finding him in the forest on their day in Breckenridge.
Likewise, the hikers enjoyed their time in the forest, and their day on the trail.
Even though we split up on this vacation day, we found that the hikers and the shoppers did exactly the same things today!
We guess you can say that we are hikers, because most of our days seem to be planned around the next hike we're going to take. It's good exercise and it's free, and it's one of the few things allowed under Covid-19 social distancing and in the fresh air. We raised a family of hikers, so while we are here together in Colorado, we went hiking every day.
Both of our sons and their wives are here for several days. Of course that means that our granddaughter is here as well, and she gets the seat of honor in her Daddy's pack.
They've been practicing on hikes back at their home in the Kansas City area, and we found that Carter likes hikes best when she has some greenery in her hand.
Our first walk was a loop hike that included views of the mountains that surround Dillon Reservoir. With minimal elevation gain, it was a good way to acclimatize our visitors from the flat lands.
With our daughter-in-law's family here as well, we made quite a parade on our hikes.
Carter knows that she can get out of the pack when the hike is over. With her rested legs, she leads the parade back to the cars.
With our second hike we got a little boost with the elevation gain. We took the Keystone ski resort's gondola ride to the top.
This was Carter's first ride in a gondola. But surrounded by her parents and grandparents she was soon very comfortable looking out at the world whizzing by below her.
It looks like we are doing a little social distancing within our group as we sometimes got a little scattered over the trail.
We are hiking the ski trails here on the top of the mountain. We can look down on the black diamond runs, but our 3-mile loop didn't have a lot of elevation gain.
Our littlest hiker fell asleep before the loop was over.
We took more pictures at the top after the hike. After years of taking pictures on her tip-toes with her tall sons . . .
Denisa thinks it's nice to get to take pictures with her daughters now!
Back down off the gondola, Carter had some fun with her grandparents. She made a very cute little fox with her moose and bear grandmothers.
Then she sat in the king-sized adirondack chair with her grandfathers. We love it that both sets of grandparents like to travel together!
Denisa also loves it that Carter adores the beautiful pots of flowers that are scattered around the ski resort.
In fact, when we were near the lake the day before, she was petting the flowers in another huge barrel.
We think she loves flowers almost as much as Gram.
Our last hike was the shortest and the steepest. Right outside the townhouse are paved and dirt paths that walkers can use to explore the village of Keystone. This one was especially steep.
But the pay-off at the top is a beautiful little stream that is rushing down that steep slope.
Granddad got lots of exercise dipping Carter's toes into that icy cold water. She would giggle in delight at the cold, and then beg for him to do it again and again.
As grandparents, that is our job. To do whatever delights our grandchild over and over. We will hold her in the hot tub and get splashed until we are soaked . . .
and give her chocolate pudding even when it's not on the approved menu. Being a grandparent and getting to spend time with our family in the mountains is a special blessing!
And hiking with this special party of eleven in a beautiful place is another blessing!
Even though we are leaving Leadville, Colorado--the highest elevation incorporated city in North America--we are heading up-hill as we drive the motor home to our next special destination in the Rocky Mountains. We are going to be staying right above Dillon Reservoir and the town of Keystone, Colorado, for the next 11 days!
It's a traveling day to get there, and it's only a 38-mile trip. We're on Highway 91, driving higher and higher until we reach Freemont Pass at well over 11,000 feet.
When the highway sign warns of 7% grade going downhill for the next four miles, RVers must take notice. That is a steep descent for a long stretch with many curves ahead. We are glad for our diesel engine brake on Colorado highways like this one!
Then we reached I-70, where more towering mountains make for a very scenic drive to our next special destination.
We got the motor home set up in our home for the next 11 days in Lowry Campground. We lucked into the best site in this Forest Service campground when someone cancelled their reservation about the time we were making our plans to be in Colorado for the summer. At the time we made the reservation, the Forest Service wasn't even sure if the state of Colorado would allow public campgrounds to be open this summer. But we're sure glad they opened up in the middle of June!
We are situated on Swan Mountain, right between the towns of Dillon, Silverthorn, Frisco, and Keystone. We didn't realize when we made the reservation that we would have access to all the shopping and food options that these sizable towns offer, plus all the beauty of the mountains that surround us. This is a special campground spot!
This would be a special destination under any circumstances, but it's super special to us because we have guests that are arriving today as well! Our oldest son and his wife planned a family gathering in Colorado. They went to all the work of booking a townhouse for the group, and then verified that we could find a camping place for our motor home as well. So after they drove over ten hours from their home, we got to see Luke and Jordan, and our granddaughter Carter in Colorado!
On top of that, our youngest son and his wife drove 11 hours to also meet us here in Colorado!
On top of that, Jordan's family drove and flew to be here in Colorado too! So we have a very special group of people to spend some special time! We were a group of eleven on the trails this week!
With all these special things going on, we also have special news to share. WE ARE GOING TO HAVE A NEW GRANDBABY! We've known about it for quite some time, but we wanted to be sure that Luke and Jordan made the announcement first. In fact, we purposefully didn't use the pictures of Carter wearing her "Big Sis" t-shirt in the blog this spring.
We think she's going to be a great big sister!
Likewise, we didn't mention the miracle we experienced last month during the family zoom meeting for the gender reveal. We were riding up the ATV trail to Goose Lake with our friends, when we pulled over to dry out our shoes from our unfortunate water crossing that morning. That perfectly coincided with the noon hour when the rest of the family could zoom in for a virtual meeting right after Jordan's ultrasound. By some miracle, we suddenly had a good enough phone signal to join the rest of the family to find out we're going to have a grandson! Right after our special zoom meeting, our phone signal vanished for the rest of the day on that mountain. It really was a miracle that we got to participate in the gender reveal that day!
So we are very excited about this special little boy that will be born at the end of October. For now, we are also very excited about being in this special place with some of our favorite people!
Stay tuned for more pictures as we're going to be doing some of the special things we love to do with these special people--like reading books . . .
and taking walks in the forest!
We're glad that we can now share our special news in this special place with these special people!
