karens

Earlier this month, we took our two boys back to Colorado for our summer vaca. This is our third such vacation where we do a loop trip. We love it here!

We landed in Denver on a Sunday to a cool, rainy day and headed into town. This is my husband and me's 4th trip to CO and we've never been into the city before. We ate lunch/dinner at Cheesecake Factory and watched Italy win the World Cup (my son would have preferred eating at ESPN, but could not get a table. Discovered a lot of downtown Denver, shopping-wise, is not open on Sundays. We went to the Colorado History Museum. I read nice reviews of this, but I was disappointed. I thought the much smaller historical museums at Cripple Creek and Ouray were a lot more interesting. Although this one is larger, I can't say there was a whole lot of stuff there, whereas the one in Ouray is overflowing with all sorts of interesting stuff. Before we left for our hotel, we had to stop at Rocky Mnt. Choco. Factory to pick up my very favorite dark choco. covered caramels.

We spent our second day in the northern Denver suburbs. We went to Water World which was a total blast. We've been to several water parks all over, and this was our favorite. It helped that they weren't predicting the best weather, so we had almost no lines and got on almost every single ride, some several times. My younger son loved "being flushed down the toilet". The float-through theme rides were unique to us.

That evening we went mini-golfing at Adventure Golf, which is an elaborately landscaped and themed mini-golf course. We did the volcano course with a large volcano that spews fire. I walked through the pirate themed one, and the landscaping was beautiful. One hole was actually on a bridge over the water. Very pretty.

Our next day was a drive to Canon City with several stops on the way. The first was at Manitou Cliff Dwellings. We enjoyed Mesa Verde, and here I felt we could really scramble through and and around the ruins a bit more. Yes, it's touristy and all, but it was a good stopping point to walk around a while.

Our next stop was to to the Florissant Beds Nat'l Mon. We visited the small visitor center and saw the many perfectly preserved fossils - plants, bees, fish, etc., and even some insects in amber. We walked the 1 mile trail past several petrified tree stumps. Then it was on to Cripple Creek.

ellen_griswold

Hi Karen! Enjoying your report so far(always like your posts) and looking forward to the next installment! Sounds like a great trip!

karens

Hey, Ellen, I'm looking forward to your trip report as well!
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Cripple Creek (cont'd)
I'm not a gambler, so I can't say I was overly impressed with the gambling town CC has become. But it was a worthwhile stop for an hour or two.

My family is not as fascinated in western US history as I am, so I went by myself to tour their small historical museum. It's crammed with a lot of interesting stuff. I esp. liked the upstairs re-created household rooms, with the furniture, furnishings and fashions of the day.

Next I visited a brothel. The Old Homestead used the be the most expensive and exclusive brothel in CO. It has been restored and is open for tours. On the drive to CC, I explained to my older son what a brothel was. He is a (young) 13 and he was appalled at the idea. I hastened to add that is was not *currently* used a brothel, but he said there was no way he was going to something like that. There was no way I was explaining this to my younger son (he has an unfortunate habit of repeating things at school). He thought I said "waffle house" and he said he didn't want to visit a waffle house, so again I went by myself.

I was the only one there, and I got a private tour. Many of the furnishings (wallpaper, furniture, lighting fixtures, etc.) were original and imported from Europe and were very ornate. Back in the time tricks were 25cents and to spend the night would cost a man $250, which is the equivalent of $9,000 today! Back then, there were enough gold millionaires to support this practice. The guide said that CC was so "it" that people would travel from Denver by train to shop in their fashionable stores. How times change... It was an interesting and totally unique tour.

We then drove to Canon City via Phantom Canyon Road. We did several 4wd roads on this vacation, and Phantom Canyon was the easiest, which was nice for our first one. It was scenic, but had no drop offs, was fairly wide the whole way and not rough.

Canon city was what I expected - a bit rough around the edges, but was a good stopping point for us. It has way too many prisons. Our motel owner in Lake city told us that the 9/11 terrorist (M-something, can't spell it) is being held at the max prison in nearby Florence in an underground cell. He said he'll probably never see daylight again.

The next morning we visited the prison museum in Canon City. Many of the exhibits are in the old jail cells of the former jail block. There was the original, intact gas chamber, weapons confiscated from prisoners over the years, jail uniforms (past and present), etc. It was fascinating, spooky and sobering.

After that, we were glad to leave to Canon City and drove to Salida. We had a chance to browse their interesting art galleries and stores before we went white water rafting.

We took the boys on a 1/2 day Arkansas River Browns Canyon trip. My husband and I have rafted rivers all over the west and the Arkansas is our favorite. It's very scenic and has a great collection of Class III rapids. Our rafting co. pulled over at a rocky overhang and let people from our group climb up and jump off into a deep spot in the river. The boys thought this was very exciting.

We continued on after this, ate dinner in Gunnison and drove on to Lake City.

karens

Lake City
I was so impressed with Lake City - it was totally different from what I expected. I thought it would be a this tiny town in the middle of nowhere, run-down and a bit rough around the edges. It is a small town, but it's charming. We didn't have the time to really explore all the restored buildings. We drove through the restored area (3 blocks or so), ate a great breakfast at the Tic Toc Diner and did drive out to see the old cemetary on outskirts of town. The cemetary is in a wooded lot and some of the old gravestones are surrounded by fences - some made of wood, some of very ornate metalwork.

We drove to Silverton via the Alpine Loop - Cinnamon Pass. I've read a lot about this road, and was a bit concerned. It was very pretty and a nice drive - no really sharp drop-offs, and a few tighter turns and some rough spots, but nothing terrifying. The boys had fun at the summit - there was still some snow up there and they had a snowball fight. We descended the summit into the ghost town of Animas Forks.

Animas Forks is a true ghost town - totally abandoned. I continue to be amazed at these ghost towns that are in the middle of nowhere, and that we find challenging to get to by 4wd vehicle. Back then, they built and lived in these towns with no jeeps, etc.! Most of the wooden structures were in stable shape, and we able to explore the different houses, etc. These people had the best views from their windows! One house was two stories with a 4 sided bowed window in the front room. I got a nice picture of the boys in this house - one boy was upstairs, the other downstairs.

karens

OK - now for some of the realities of family travel. What I described above is how I remembered our visit to Animas Forks. But I just watched the video my husband took, and I now remember how it *really* was.

In Lake City, I bought a beach ball for the boys to use in the hot springs pools later in our vacation. The boys proceeded to blow it half way up and hit each other repeatedly with it in the back seat of the car while we driving Cinnamon Pass.

When we got out of the car at Animas Forks, they brought the blasted beach ball with them and older son tortured younger son by playing keep away with him. Older son threw the ball, it rolled down a rocky pathway and younger son fell while running down the path to catch the ball. So he's all upset b/c he's hurt. Then older son gets a splinter scrambling around all the wooden buildings. (There really wasn't much we do about it then). So, I'm trying to get a picture of the boys in the 2 story house and my husband captured the following tirade of mine on film: "Get the beach ball OUT of the picture! There were no beach balls 100 years ago! Quit looking at your splinter - we'll deal with it in Silverton. SMILE!! My goodness, all I want is ONE LOUSY PICTURE OF YOU KIDS!!!"

I begged my husband to edit my little tantrum out of the film, and my older son wanted to know why "because that's how you really sound".

Ah, the joys of family travel. I really do enjoy our family vacations immensely, but parts of them are not always as "picture perfect" as I would like sometimes. Sigh.

ellen_griswold

Oh karen, you made me LOL! Oh yes, the joys of family travel, especially road trips i can totally relate to your camcorder and pics experience! Also agree with you re canon city! Looking forward to the rest of your report.

karens

Glad to hear I'm not the only one Ellen!!
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Silverton
We spent a few hours in Silverton. I again went by myself to check out their historical museum. Their jail was upstairs, which was an improvement over the "old" jail in another part of town, and a lot better than the one in Animas Forks, which was basically a square wooden box.

We continued on to Ouray on the Million Dollar Hwy. Steep drop offs, no guard rails - still felt like we were 4wing!

We love Ouray. We ate dinner and headed to the hot springs pool. For some reason, it was just filling up and the diving area and the (new to us) area around the big slide had about an inch of water, and were obviously not open. This was a huge disappointment, as we really enjoyed hanging out at this pool in the evenings in the past.

The next day we drove up to Yankee Boy Basin. This is our 3rd visit, but the first time we drove ourselves. The drop offs on this trail are VERY steep and dramatic. We passed the waterfall used in the Coors Beer commercial and got to fields of wildflowers. The boys liked climbing a rock area. It's so pretty up here. After we got back down, we hiked up to Cascade Falls, on the side of town. Then the boys and my husband went to explore the general store and toy store while I went to their historical museum. It is small, but crammed full of all kinds of interesting stuff. I think it's the most interesting in Colorado. Had dinner and just strolled the shops. They have a great bookstore - lots of Western titles. They also sold things like old nails and pieces of Anasazi pottery. It'd be cool to have a piece of something that old, but I've read accounts where people (unknown to each other) have related stories about what happened after they took pottery shards away from their "homes". Many people tell the same story of hearing knocks on their door in the middle of the night. It would scare the bejesus out me to have a knock on my door at 3am, so I didn't purchase anything except books!

The next day we drove to Glenwood Springs.

BayouGal

Good reporting, Karens! Love the "before" and "after camcorder" LoL . . . boy, that could be said about so many things when going through life with a family, huh?! I guess that's how all of us mothers survive sometimes.

DebitNM

I am enjoying your report and find myself smiling at your children's antics. BTDT {been there, done that}

As far as taking relics home...it seems that no matter where I go I here stories of folks who have - errr- "taken" souvenirs home, only to mail them back to the post office to get rid of the jinx. I've heard this in NM, AZ and CO.

Debi

karens

Debi - that jinx is spooky to me. I think discovering an intact Ansazi pot or basket would be cool, but I'd let it be!
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Glenwood Springs
We visited Glenwood Adventure park, which was new to us. The have a neat spin on the alpine slide - an alpine coaster. It's on tracks, so you can go faster. You ride down, and at the end, the track grabs your cart and tows you back up. You can go faster than an alpine slide, and i don't think you can flip in a coaster. It was a fun ride. The boys did a zipline type ride, where they sat in a swing type harness, got pulled back and then were ziplined down maybe about 50 yards. The ride lasted about 30 seconds, and the loading and unloading took FOREVER. It could only seat 4 people at a time, and each ride took almost 5 mins. to hook every up, and then unhook them. Did I mention it was 96 degrees that day? The boys and I also climbed their rock wall. My older son made it to the top of hte hardest climb with ease, and my younger son and I got to the top of easier (but not the easiest) ones. I felt good about that, but then my son told me that the wall was a "very easy" one.

That evening, we hung out at the hot springs pool. We'd go the really hot area, until we couldn't stand it any longer, and then walk back to the diving area and just hung out and people watched. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express,and they allowed us a really late check-out (2pm), so we were able to spend the entire next morning at the pool, and be able to come back to the motel to wash up and pack up.

karens

Our last stop in our Colorado loop was Breckenridge. We've been twice before, but never stayed in town.

I loved Breckenridge. We still think there is a second home in CO in our future, but weren't sure where. We like Denver, but truthfully, we like CO the further we get from Denver. We love Ouray, but it's really far away from any urban area. As much as we love the mountains and nature, we appreciate urban amenities too. (esp. a good airport). Breckenridge just might fit the bill!

We strolled the town the first evening. The town planners have done a wonderful job here, in my opinion. The river area has been beautifully landscaped - flower boxes, hanging baskets, everywhere. The main street stores have kept some of the original architecture and blended in nicely the new stuff. I loved walking down the street and seeing the old stuff right there, nicely restored. We ate great pizza at Downstairs at Eric's. We liked it so much here we ate here again the next evening.

Why can't the Poconos do anything remotely like the Colorado ski towns? I know skiing-wise, you can't begin to compare the two, but can it cost that much to do some nice landscaping, etc.?

the next day the boys and my husband rode the alpine slide while I did the ski-lift assisted mountain biking. I love this, and can't do this at home. I went twice - first time intermediate; second time intermediate/advanced and was happy to see that I didn't have any problems on the harder trails.

karens

Next we drove to Copper b/c we wanted to ride the mountain scooters (Digglers). Hit construction on the way, go to Copper, paid $40 to rent the Digglers, and then an electrical storm came in and shut down the chairlift. We hung around and then discovered that the guy who rented us the Digglers gave us incorrect info - he said we could ride the chairlift unlimited times. That's not the case - you pay per ride. Not that that was an issue - it appeared that we just paid $40 for Digglers we couldn't use.

We waited a while, and my husband started talking to the guy whose job is was to decide whether or not to re-open the chair. The storm had settled over the mountain dividing Breck and Copper. He said that no ones actually been hit by lightening on the mountain. The problem is that if lightening hit the ski lift, it could burn out the motor and then everyone would be stuck on the chair lift. (Could you imagine?) My husband told the guy how much the boys wanted to use the Digglers and how we were given incorrect info in the rental place. The guy was super nice and must have felt bad for the boys - he drove us up to the top of the mountain in his Suburban! So the boys got to ride down the mountain, and thankfully, it had stopped raining.

We spent another nice evening wandering around Breckenridge, and then the next day it was time to fly home. It was a really fun vacation.