Okay, let’s face it, this isn’t much of a discussion, but since I’ve just spent a whole month in Colorado, I figure I should share some of the highlights, right?
We rented a cabin (well, a house really, but a cabinish house) in the mountains, and my husband took off half the time we were there and worked from “home” the other half. As you know from my post about vacationing and disorganized blogging, I also worked part of the time we were there – I had some editing projects (one of which was aggravatingly two months late getting to me so that it arrived in my inbox two days before we left – isn’t that the way life always works?), and I had to keep up with blogging, since I somehow totally over-scheduled myself blog-wise. That’s okay, though – we still had TONS of time for family fun on our vacation!
Some of the things we did:
- Hiking! There was lots of hiking even within walking distance of the cabin because we were staying right in the mountains. But we didn’t stop there. We also hiked in the Rocky Mountains, to a beautiful place called Hanging Lakes (where we got poured on – but that just added to the adventure), in Garden of the Gods, up Mt. Bierstadt (see the picture here) – a 14,000 foot mountain (my husband and kids made it all the way to the top, but I was having trouble keeping up, especially with the altitude – I stopped at 13,500 feet and read my Kindle while they kept going!), and in Breckenridge and Frisco. Some of our hikes were even through snow! The whole family loves hiking, so these hikes were definitely some of the highlights of our trip!
- Rodeo. My kids (my daughter especially) love the rodeo, so we had to catch one while we were here!
- 4th of July in Breckenridge. We went to a fun festival in Breckenridge where the fire department came and opened up the hoses for the kids (and some of us adults to run through). Plus, they had an amazing sidewalk art show and a street full of Vipers to look at! Fireworks in Breckenridge were probably the best I’ve ever seen in my entire life. My kids enjoyed them from on top of our van. 🙂
- Gold mine tours. We went on two different mine tours and panned for gold. My daughter LOVES gold panning and could have probably spent half our vacation doing just that (especially after she heard the story of the girl who found a rock with $40,000 worth of gold in the stream!). (My son and my husband actually went ATVing while we were at one of the mines – for my son’s 13th birthday!)
- Ropes course. We did a ropes course when we were in Virginia last year as well, but for some reason this one terrified me. I did it, but there were quite a few times when I had to force myself to step out onto things.
- Wild animal sanctuary. Denver has a really cool animal sanctuary where you walk on a raised platform high above the animals. Because you’re up high, the animals don’t pay any attention to you at all (they don’t consider the sky part of their territory), so they act really naturally. I’ve never heard so many lions roaring, bears growling, and wolves howling and fighting before. It was really kind of amazing!
- Hot springs. We spent a few hours in Glenwood Hot Springs, which I’ve always wanted to do! They actually have to cool the water down, because the natural springs are over 120 degrees!
- Other random activities. We also saw lots of wildlife while we were here (some right in our back yard!), made campfires, picked wildflowers, fed chipmunks and ground squirrels, went to a butterfly garden and held a tarantula, visited a few small town museums and went to go see Inside Out on a rainy day (which was a fabulous movie!).
So, what’s been your favorite vacation you’ve ever taken? I want to know!
Omg, I love all the pictures! I just got back from vacation myself (Thrusday, actually) and had a blast chilling by the beach and exploring all the sites. You are brave to do the rope course – I am a wimp when it comes to heights! lol
I was actually surprised how terrified I was of certain parts of the ropes course – anything where I couldn’t see exactly where all of my limbs were supposed to be at once basically. My husband and kids were zipping through everything (my kids didn’t care at all if they fell and the harness caught them) and I was standing there all wobbly and horrified to take the next step! 🙂
Oh wow it looks and sounds like you had an amazing vacation. I love hiking even though I can’t walk too long. And that animal sanctuary sounds amazing! Your cabin looks really pretty and I love the view of the forets and mountains behind it. Even though I am afraid of heights I also like the mountains, as long as I don’t have to go on scary roads or with a cable car. I’ve never heard of gold panning before, it sounds sort of fun.
There has definitely been some crazy driving on this trip – and we rode a chair lift that actually made me a little nervous (mostly because my daughter wouldn’t stop squirming!). But I would definitely recommend Colorado! (A great place to walk and see beautiful sights if you can’t do serious hiking is Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs.)
That sounds like so much fun! I’ve never been to Colorado, although I’ve heard it’s so pretty there. I love hiking. I think my favorite vacation had to be the time my family stayed in a cabin in the Smokies, in Tennessee. I love the mountains!
I love the mountains too!! I would love to live somewhere with beautiful mountain scenery, but for now I’ll have to make do with vacations. It’s been years since I’ve been to the Smokies – need to head back there soon!
It sounds like you had a lot of fun. My parents go to Breckenridge for Octoberfest every year, but I’ve only ever been there in winter for skiing. I bet it’s really pretty in summer.
It is! 4th of July there was so much fun and we really enjoyed just doing the chair lift and hiking a bit up on top of the mountain!
Wow! This looks like so much fun! I want a bigger photo of that sidewalk chalk art! Lol. And I’m dying to do hot springs ANYWHERE again. Ahhhh, soaking in hot springs is the best. So glad you had such a fabulous time!
I’ll have to put the pictures of the chalk art up on Instagram now that I’m on there. 🙂
That sounds like you had so much fun! The picture of the chipmunks on your daughters lap is adorable! I don’t think I would have liked the rope bridges, but the animal sanctuary would have been neat to wander over.
I’ve done the panning for gold once as a kid. Can’t remember if I found anything, but it’s cool that is still a thing.
She was in heaven when the guy gave us seeds to feed the chipmunks – they were really adorable!
Beautiful pictures!!! Seriously, I love looking at them because they are so lovely 🙂 I really like hiking, even if sometimes it’s so tiring. I’ve never been to Colorado at all, but I sort of want to visit now because the place looks amazing! Happy to hear you really enjoyed, and so did your kids 😀 Thanks for sharing your experience!
Hiking is definitely tiring – especially with my husband, who naturally wants to walk a lot faster than I do! 🙂
I really like that chalk artwork; how cool! It sounds like you all had a fantastic time and got to do things that everyone loved. That’s wonderful! I saw Inside Out recently too – cute film. 🙂
I don’t know what my favorite vacation was — I’ve been to NYC a few times, and there is usually a big reason to go (like a concert or BEA this past May) so those are always fun. Plus, I get to meet up with a friend who lives there every time. I’d like to visit more places though.
There was one more chalk art (that was actually maybe even more impressive) of Abraham Lincoln – but I didn’t end up downloading that one and my internet connection was just too slow for me to add it. I’ll have to put it up on Instagram because it was really impressive!
Oh, and I’ve only been to New York once – last year for BEA – but I loved it!
What a wonderful vacation! Thanks for sharing your photos!
Glad you enjoyed them!
I love family vacation spots like this. There sounds like so much to do, but all mainly low key in nature. Sounds glorious!
Yeah, it was nice to be here for a whole month because we could do LOTS of things, but we didn’t feel like we were running around crazily the whole vacation.
So lucky :)…I am glad you had a good time. It sounds amazing. The pictures are beautiful
That looks amazing, I have only visited Orlando but I would love to travel to other parts of the US and Colorado look idyllic!
Thanks for sharing!
Sounds like an amazing vacation! I went to Vail last summer, and I absolutely loved it. I would love to go back to Colorado sometime soon!
[…] My family spent the first two weeks of July in amazing, beautiful Colorado. If you want to see what we did, along with some pictures, check out my Colorado Vacation post! […]