Still Catchin' Up: Camping in the Cold

A while back, Dave somehow convinced us (mostly me - Matt was excited) to go camping - in SEPTEMBER! In case you didn't know, the mountains can get a little chilly in September. And in case you haven't read my blog in the past, I HATE the cold. Seriously.

But Matt has learned the proper way to get me to do something I don't want to do: tell me it involves the purchase of new toys - and then buy me new toys! This time, we got new, fancy sleeping bags! They're down and cozy and extremely warm and awesome. So, I quit my complaining and packed my bag for a weekend of fall colors and cold.

It wouldn't be long before I would regret ever deciding to go.

Ok, not really. I just like being super dramatic. But there were some crazy, bad things that made the weekend quite adventurous. We'll get to that in a bit.

Anyway, off we went to the mountains - more specifically, the area around Marble, Colorado. And after a quick stop at a roadside waterfall...

Ahh.

We made it to our campsite!

I snapped this picture of our beautiful car - so proud of it. I had no idea that my pride would quickly change to disappointment. Massive disappointment. (Ha, this dramatic thing is awesome!)

Anyway, we had a delicious lunch at a local barbecue place, and readied ourselves for a little hike to see some fall colors. This was when I came face-to-face with "disaster" #1: I forgot my shoes! I was wearing awesome North Face sandals, but I'd meant to bring my trail shoes for the hike. Since I'd forgotten them, I had to hike in sandals. And it wasn't fun.

But oh, well. The hike was still nice. Unfortunately, the fall colors were not quite what we were hoping for ("disaster" #2). Dave had planned to get some good photos on this trip, but the aspens at the higher altitude were not turning the beautiful yellows we were looking for. So, we hiked and saw some pretty views and got a few glimpses of some pretty colors in bushes and lower altitude trees. No wall-worthy photos, but still fun.

Hiking.

See? Still pretty.

Hiking. We came across the old foundation of what was supposed to be condos for Marble Ski Resort - before the resort closed. Matt and Dave, being the avid skiers they are, were pretty giddy about this discovery.

After our hike, Dave had the bright idea (that's right, I'm blaming it all on you, Dave) to head up a rocky road to Crystal Mill. It's supposed to be beautiful up there, and Dave was still hoping to get some awesome pictures on this trip. We started up the road, which was 4-wheel-drive only, thinking our nifty little Subie could handle anything it came across.

Enter disaster #3: The Big One.

To give our Subie a little credit, it wasn't the car itself that failed us, but one of the tires. And to give the tire a little credit, it was a REALLY rocky road. We just hit a rock perfectly, and our tire was very suddenly flat.

The bad news (other than the flat) was that the road was very narrow and pretty busy. There was no way than another car was going to be passing us in either direction. The good news was that the boys changed the tire faster than I've ever seen anyone change a tire in my life.

Flat tires suck.

The other bad news was that we still had to make it back down the 3 miles of road we'd already traveled (we obviously were no longer trying to make it to the mill). They put on the flat, turned the car around (in a terrifyingly narrow section!), drove to a wider section of road, moved the spare from the front tire to the back tire (which involved putting the flat back on, switching the spare and the back tire, and moving the back tire to the front), and VERY SLOWLY drove back down the road, watching carefully for rocks.

It was so fun! Don't believe me? Well, that's because it really sucked.

After driving back to the nearest town and searching for anyone who sell us a tire at 6:00 on a Saturday night, we finally gave up and went back to camp. We were in desperate need of relaxation, so we had some hot dogs, some beer, and some fire before heading to bed.

Camping!

I somehow made it through the freezing cold night, despite the fact that my toes were exposed to the elements through my stupid sandals. My new sleeping bag was ridiculously warm, and we woke up to a beautiful, new day. The bacon Matt was cooking when I got up may have made the world look a little more lovely, but it was a nice morning, nonetheless.

Good mornin', good mornin' to you.

I took a walk to see the lovely fall colors, which were prettier at our campsite than anywhere on our hike. I took lots of pictures to show my kids at school!

So we packed up and drove off to find a tire, which resulted in the purchase of FOUR tires for LOTS of money. But now we have awesome tires, and that's good.

Goodbye, pretty mountains.

So, it was actually not a bad weekend. Things didn't go quite as awesomely as we'd hoped, but being in the mountains on a crappy camping trip is still WAY better than being in the city doing work. Even when it's majorly cold.

Still Catchin' Up: Lakes and Mountains

While there are so many things I love about living in Colorado, we are a little lacking in the awesome giant lake department. Or maybe there are lots of lakes out here, but we just don't know anyone with a boat. Or maybe we're too busy climbing mountains and skiing to think about searching for a lake or friends with boats. Whatever the case, we don't get to enjoy the whole lake experience unless we head out to Kansas or Oklahoma to visit family. Which is exactly what we did a while back.

Matt's family had a big end-of-summer reunion/get-together thing back in August at Grand Lake in Oklahoma. After a late, Friday night flight and a crazy couple-hour drive, Matt and I snuck into the rental house after everyone was asleep. Despite our late arrival, we were up the next morning and ready to get out on the lake.

Matt's dad was our captain, and our nieces were the tubing/boating experts who showed us (me, really) how it was done!

Papa driving and Bria and Lexie zooming along.

Despite my mild fear of dying a watery death, I even got out and gave the tubing thing a try. After falling off almost immediately (I guess it wasn't my fault, but I still felt pretty stupid), I got back on and had a blast zooming around the lake - a little more slowly than the girls zoomed.

Mildly terrified, but excited!

Then it was Matt's turn. Growing up in a state with lakes and such, Matt had done the boating and water sport thing way more than me. Even though he hadn't been water skiing in years, he picked it back up immediately.

In the water and then out of the water. Just like that.

Whee!

Crazy hair!

After the girls had another go on the kneeboard:

We were tired and ready for lunch. But it wasn't long before we were back in the water, this time it was the pool.

Playing and relaxing.

And of course, a weekend with this part of Matt's family is not complete without Dark Tower!

I spent most of the game acting out little scenes with the game pieces and taking pictures of them.

As usual, the best part of weekends with family is getting to catch up with people we don't get to see enough. There was plenty of visiting during our delicious dinner.

Cooking dinner and chatting.

Sadly, we were headed back to the airport pretty early the next day.

After a quick toe-dip in the pool!

While the trip was too short, it was great to see family. We're already looking forward to Christmas, when we're planning to see the other side of Matt's family in Arkansas!

After getting home, we got back into the Colorado swing of things and did some mountainy things. We headed back up Bear Peak a few weeks back, and it pretty much kicked our butts this time. I guess we had not done enough hiking to really "condition" ourselves this year. But we're pretty awesome, so we made it!

On the long and kinda boring beginning part.

Getting closer to the top. You can see the peak in the middle pic.

We made it! Beautiful!

Lots of people at the summit.

The last time we did this hike, it was extremely foggy, so the view wasn't great. This time is was clear and beautiful! And we had an extra cool bonus of having our own little fly-over.

A small plane flew right by the summit. It was a little frightening and totally awesome.

We were a little tired after the hike, but it was nice to get out since we haven't hiked much this year. And while I loved being on the lake (can we make that a yearly thing?), there's still something about the fresh, mountain air.

On top of a mountain. Which is cool.