Colorado 14ers Trip

We spent five days in Colorado.  It was a glorious time.  Our main goal was to summit a 14er.  Quandary Peak was touted as a family friendly mountain boasting an elevation of 14, 265 ft. above sea level.  

Looking up at where we have yet to go.

We started off at 7am on Sunday morning.  We finally reached the summit at 1:30pm.  It took us longer than we had anticipated.  Once you get above tree line you battle rock fields the rest of the way.  Unstable footing and a seven year old who stopped every fifty steps made for a long trek up the mountain. 

A view from the top! I can't believe we made it!

Monday we decided we needed a bit more of a relaxed day.  So we drove toward Glenwood Springs and hiked up to Hanging Lake.  At just over one mile this was a much quicker hike for our family.  The lake is just gorgeous.  An amazing blue-green color that is clear all the way to the bottom.  Water falls grace the backside of the lake, and above the waterfalls are more waterfalls that you can walk behind.  I didn't venture up there this time.  My knees were really screaming at me and I have been up there before.  Titus & the kids took lots of great pictures, so I felt like I was there with them!

A fallen log provides a ledge for picture taking on the lake!

We had originally planned to hike a second 14er on Tuesday morning and then head down to the Rockies game.  But with our long day for the first hike, we were worried that it would wear us out too much and take too long and we'd miss the game.  So instead we headed down early, ate lunch in a park by my old apartment, and went to the Rockies game as scheduled.  We had purchased the cheap $4 Rockpile tickets a few days earlier and found our way to our seat.  

Just before the game, a Rockies Event person came up to us and asked if we were a family of 4 and if we would like a free seat upgrade and bag full of goodies.  Well, OF COURSE we did!  So she took us down to some pretty sweet VIP seating on the Pavilion, gave us a backpack full of water, peanuts, cracker jacks, color programs, and a signed baseball.  Then the Toyota people (because it was a Toyota promotion) gave us hats and T-shirts and we sat in a 4-Runner during mid-2nd inning and waved at a camera projecting us on the Jumbo-tron.  Seriously!  It was such a cool experience.  In all our games, neither Titus or I have had anything like that happen to us.  It capped off our trip in such a fun way!

In the Toyota Tailgate Winner's seating for the Rockies game.

We are now home, recovering, doing laundry, cleaning the house, and all the things we must do to pay the bills.  But we have some pretty great memories and pictures from this trip to keep us going until our next big adventure!