We reached Durango at about noon, but weren't quite ready to stop for lunch yet so I just drove on. I LOVE the drive from Durango north. It had been rainy and overcast all day long, so that hindered us from being able to take in all of the views I had been so looking forward to. But even through the rain and with low visibility and low laying clouds... it's just sooooo pretty!!! We went on to Silverton (neat, neat little town), but found nothing for lunch. So we drove on to Ouray. Between Silverton and Ouray the rain turned to snow. ~Aaaaaahhhhh~ Is there anything in the whole world that can make a person happier than driving through the breathtaking Rocky Mountains and being able to see beautiful, magical snow falling, making it all the more gorgeous??? And in May?! I LOVE IT! :-)
This particular stretch of road is my favorite in the whole wide world. I've never seen anything that can surpass the scenery there. It's just so spectacular and... dramatic, I guess. The steep and jagged ridges, the waterfalls, the deep gorges and canyons... It's just amazing. Obviously, the weather and lighting made for very poor picture taking conditions, but I oohed and aahed myself silly anyway. :-)
The road from Silverton to Ouray is not only sensational, but also quite snakely! It's great fun to drive, although you can't go very fast. And by "very fast" I mean anything beyond about 35 miles per hour--at best. There are several of those yellow highway signs along the way displaying the winding and "s"ing turns again and proclaiming an advisory speed of 15 mph -- or even 10 mph a few times. Crazy!
Here's a picture looking down into Ouray as you near the town. It had stopped snowing entirely by the time we got there, but it was still quite chilly and there was a steady drizzle coming down.
If I would have been quick enough with the camera I would have taken a picture of all of the people who were actually out swimming in the pool at the edge of town--in the cold and rain! It would have been totally modest, I assure you, as all you could see were several heads bobbing up and down in the steaming water--everybody was nice and toasty in the natural hot springs pool and there was no bare skin to be seen anywhere. Ha!
There was nothing to eat in Ouray either, so we drove on. It was finally sometime after 1:00 when we reached Montrose and everybody thought they were starving to death. We were just about to pull over when it suddenly occurred to us that there is a Taco Time in Delta! We'd come this far--why stop now?! So my family humored me (James promised to buy the kids dessert if they'd wait a while longer to eat without complaining!) and we had lunch at 2:00. I way over-did it. A crisp meat burrito, a crisp bean burrito, and most of a cherry empanada. Tsk, tsk, tsk. So bad!
Anyway, James took over the driving from there and I slept a bit more. We got to Craig a little after 6:00, I think. We stopped by K-Mart and walked around for quite a while just so everybody could stretch their legs a bit after the trip. We ended up finding some good deals ($1 shirts and a nice pewter frame on sale real cheap--now we can finally display our family picture from last year!), so that was nice.
We decided we should grab a bite to eat before we headed over to the Clarks' house. We'd never discussed dinner plans with them and didn't want to show up there and have one of the kids get hungry and ask what was for dinner or something. ! So we went to Wendy's and, although I was still plenty full from Taco Time, I had a Jr. Burger and some oranges. Bad, bad, bad idea. We all ate light, but as we were pulling up to the Clarks' house, so was the pizza delivery girl with a great big stack of pizzas! Aaaaahhhh!!! So we ate dinner AGAIN! Oh, I was sooooo stuffed. Sister Stacey had me try some pineapple mango salsa, too, and although I was way too full to eat more than two chips (!) it was delicious!!! I usually don't like things like that and I usually can't stand things very spicy. And this stuff looked and sounded terrible! Ha! But it was sooooo good! WOW. I was wishing I'd had only one crisp burrito and had skipped Wendy's entirely!
We had a great time visiting with the Clarks and the Cox's, as always. We so enjoy going to Craig and were so happy that we were able to make it back after only about 6 months this time. The kids had a BLAST together and I think we all called it a night at about 11:00.
We were up decently early Sunday morning and had plenty of time to visit before service, especially since you don't have to drive to get there! (The Clarks are living in the "parsonage" part of the church building right now.) It was nice to have some extra visiting time.
We had a good service with a good Sunday School class and worship service, then James preached on the two women (the Church and the really bad woman) spoken of in Revelation. I enjoyed the part of the service when Brother Gerald came up front and sang Happy Birthday to himself. :-)
He turned 46 on Saturday. :-)
After church everybody stuck around for this really great white chili that Sister Stacey had made. It, too, was very good. And the freshly fried tortilla strips they had made to go with it were way too tempting--I ate too much once more. I am so prone to do that we we travel! Anyway, we had a nice time visiting and laughing some more.
The kids organized a band, of sorts, and asked James to come play the piano for them. They picked out their favorite songs from the blue book and sang one after another after another.
Sam must be multi-talented. I don't think there's any way I could play a tamborine and a ukelele at the same time!
They all headed outside for some more fun. How many kids can fit on one trampoline? At least 14 from what I can tell! Ha! This was just a recipe for disaster. It was only a matter of time before somebody came inside injured.
It was, of course, JOE! With yet another head injury! What a shock!!! I told him I'm just going to start calling him Lumpy because he's ALWAYS got a new lump on his head from one thing or another. Apparently he and Colton collided in mid-air and although it's not even visible in the picture (how is that possible?!), he had a nice little bluish welt above his left eye. Colton looked to have a little knot on his forhead, too, but the picture just didn't show much. In any case, it didn't look like they were holding any grudges!
At about 4:00 we finally headed out, after learning from the truckers amongst us that the road we had intended to take over to Estes Park is still closed--it's usually not opened up until sometime in June due to snow. It just blows James' mind. How can a road be snowed out until JUNE?! Ha! Anyway, Brother Daryl directed us on which route to take and it happened to be through Walden, Colorado, which is the Moose Viewing Capital of the state, according to the sign. Sister Janis said we would see moose through there. Brother Gerald said, "I've never seen a moose there in all of my life!" Well, Brother Gerald...
Is that not just sooooo cool?! Maybe nothing special to those Alaska folk (!), but it was pretty exciting for me! It's only the second time in my life that I've seen a moose in the wild. And I almost missed the picture of it. This little lady crossed the road and I started screaming at James to stop the van. We came to a screeching halt and the moose stopped, turned completely sideways to us, turned and looked and smiled and just waited... I grabbed me camera, pushed the button, and was greeted by those dreaded words: "Change the batteries." AAAAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGHHHHHHHH! I was so mad!!! I grabbed my cell phone and snapped one grainy picture, then remembered a trick that sometimes works with my camera. I dumped all of the batteries out, mixed 'em up and put them back in and ~voila~ the camera was rarin' to go! By then the moose was quite a ways away, but I whistled and hollered, "Hey, moosey-moosey-moosey!!!" as loud as I could several times and she stopped and looked over her shoulder at me for several seconds. She was a very sweet moose and I was so glad to have met her acquaintance. :-)
After Walden we headed into some more serious mountain territory which brought on some more serious mountain weather. :-) Look--a snow plow! In May! How cool is that?!
Up near the top of whatever pass we were going over, the snow was sooooo deep on the sides of the road I just had to take this picture. It was piled up at least as tall as our van. Ha! Love it!
I love how you can't even see the sign that says "Roosevelt National Forest" because it's buried in the snow!
Once we came down out of the snowy stuff, we were amazed at the scenery that awaited us. This was a brand new route for us and we loved it! Sooooo pretty! And I have a new favorite place: Rustic, Colorado. Does that not sound like the most wonderful place on the planet?! I never knew it existed, but the very name of it just sounds soooooo perfect! It is such a fantastic area. LOVE IT! Anyway, here are some pictures from that leg of the trip. Still cloudy weather and the pictures can't begin to display the true beauty of it (I blame the weather AND the photographer!), but it gives you an idea anyway. :-)
Somewhere along that road we saw this nice little herd of elk. I whistled and hollered, "Hey, elky-elky-elky!!!" and some of them responded as well as my moose had earlier. What courteous wildlife they have there!
We got into Ft. Collins and found a Fazoli's, which is what James had been hoping for since there's no such thing where we're from. I failed again real big. I ordered the kids' lasagna... but then had four breadsticks with it! They were nice and fresh and soooooo good--crispy, golden-brown, dripping with grease... ~sigh~ Who can resist that?! Not me, apparently. "Whether 'tis better to share my breadsticks, cooked crisp and greasy... or to scarf down the whole thing myself?!" ~sigh~ I failed.
It was dark as we drove from there into Estes Park, so we missed all of that scenery. But we'll see it on our way out tomorrow, so it's all good. :-) We got to our motel at about 10:30, I think and let the kids watch a shark documentary on Animal Planet before bed. What a treat!
This morning we grabbed a bite at McDonalds, then headed up into the National Park to drive around looking for elk and let the kids run around in the mountains a bit. Of course, we hadn't even made it down the hill from our motel and to the McDonals before we saw our first herd of elk...
They must be the city elk. Don't care for the country life, so they just stay in town and hang out in the park all the time. Really--every time we passed that park (several times today) there were a whole slew of elk there.
The only thing that could have made things any prettier today would have been some of those gorgeous deep blue Colorado skies. It was still so cloudy and overcast throughout most of the day. Not that it's anything to complain about--it's gorgeous here no matter what kind of weather you're having!
We stopped several places along the way and let the kids run around and climb on the rocks. They LOVED it. Although it was very, very cold!
(Great picture of Joe, hu?! Ha!)
You have to click on this one to enlarge it and appreciate the river snaking it's way through the valley.
MOM... Got a question for Dad... None of the bull elk had very big racks because it's so early in the year, but how come some of them have smooth, pointy racks like this...
And others have the rounded, velvety racks like this??? Does it have something to do with their age???
Katie was always the first to conquer whatever mountain was there to be conquered.
Father and sons
Tree hugger (I don't know what comes over him some times)
Katie took this picture of us sitting under the bridge by the really cool, rocky river.
There is no way you can tell how enourmous these boulders were--it was so cool!
On our way back to the car Katie found this fallen tree that was still partly attached at one end and was therefore suspended balance-beam style above the ground, so she thought she'd give it a try. Then the rest of the family had to give it a try.
If you're guessing he didn't make it very far, you're right. In fact, you're looking right now at how far he made it!
Joe did better than his Dad.
Of course, I beat them all when it was my turn. James says it's "that Smith stubbornness" since he told me I couldn't do it--had to prove him wrong and all that. I don't care what he calls it. I won. :-)
As we were leaving the river James pointed this sign out to me. AFTER all of our kids had been playing on the boulers in the river. Oh, that's nice to know!
After a couple of hours of running around and driving through the National Park we came back into town. Estes Park has a really neat downtown with lots of fun shops, so we parked the van and started walking up one side of the street and down the other. We smelled all of the food joints as we passed by and decided that the Chicago style pizza place smelled the best, so we walked back there for lunch. It was a very good decision! YUM.
After that we took the kids to have their picture taken at one of those old time photo places. James and I had gone to Estes Park for our honeymoon and had one taken, so we thought it would be fun to do another one with the whole family. It was going to cost a fortune to do one with 5 people (not that it was cheap for 3--those places are such a racket!) and we would've had to do an 8x10" and we only wanted a 5x7", so we decided to just do the kids. It turned out GREAT! I meant to bring it in so I could take a picture of it to post, but I forgot. Somebody remind me and I'll post it next time! :-)
We did some more walking and I was facing a major dilemma: do I buy the moose socks (I do have a thing about fun socks, you know), or do I buy the adorable little stuffed moose??? I've always liked moose and, of course, they go great in our woodsy bedroom, but after SEEING a moose I love them even more! Anyway, I opted for this guy. Isn't he just too cute??? We decided Walden would be the perfect name for him. :-) Katie is sleeping with him right now, although she's been warned not to drool on him.
After returning and buying my moose, it was time to re-walk the streets in search of dessert. :-) There are a TON of little candy shops here--at least 8 of them. It's NUTS! And most of them look sooooo good! That is SOOOOOO James' sort of thing, so we ended up buying stuff from three of them! Ha! We only bought the freshly made stuff. We got salt water taffy at one place, some FANTASTIC white chocolate covered pretzels and a gigantic cashew caramel turtle at another, then two different kind of fudge at the last. Talk about over-doing it! But this was our "vacation" part of the trip and James wanted to do it up right. And I think I ate 5 of the pretzels. And they're not the tiny ones either. They're probably three inches across! ~sigh~ I'm going to gain 20 lbs. on this trip!
After the candy thing, we hopped in the van and drove over to the Stanley hotel, the very famous one that was in some freaky horror movie from long ago. It's a beautiful place! F.O. Stanley and his famous Steamer arrived in Estes Park in 1903 and found the town lacking in amenities, so he took it upon himself to fix it, I guess! This hotel has been featured as one of America's most haunted hotels. Oooooooh! ;-)
Here are the kid-o's with the Stanley Steamer. Cool, hu?!
After we left there we were pretty much out of things to do--and it was only 3:00! So we stopped at a park and let the kids run wild some more. :-) Afterwards we went back to the motel and James took a nap while the kids and I watched some more Animal Planet. We headed out for dinner later on...
I didn't use the zoom on this picture--she really was just a few feet away from the van. These elk are so people friendly. They don't even really act annoyed. Of course, none of them posed for me like the moose up in Walden (!), but they're anything but afraid of you and your camera.
We drove back into the National Park to look for some more wildlife just one more time (James kept hoping to see one of the HUGE herds or 2 or 3 hundred elk like we saw here on our honeymoon)--and the kids wanted their picture taken WITH the elk. So we told them they could run down the hill as far as that rock they're standing on. :-)
We grabbed a bite to eat, came back and got everybody showered and cleaned up, and now they're sleeping soundly and I'm blogging my life away. Thanks for reading, Mom! I figure you're the only one left after all of this! HA! Wa-a-a-a-a-a-ay too long! But I wanted it all written down so I'LL remember it years from now. Anyway, tomorrow looks to be another big day, but I'm hoping we'll make it to Jon and Em's pretty early in the afternoon. I'm excited about all of our church visits now that our the vacation part of our trip is over with. It's been GREAT and I'm sooooo thankful that we've been able to do this, but now I'm ready for the other! Keep us in your prayers!
I'll try to post more (but less!) from Salida on Wednesday night. :-)
Way too tired to check for typo's--so just try to overlook them. Guess it's too late for that. Try to forget them, then! ;-)
9 comments:
WOW! Great post and pics. Thanks! That looks like a place Dustin and I would love to go see. Very beautiful. After seeing those boulders I am thankful Dustin was no where around and I bet Joe is too! LOL. Sounds like a great trip. We are always going for church things(which I love) but its always to squeeze in a mini-vaca whenever u can. Cant wait to see you guys in a few days.
Well, now I know where to go on vacation. You never know...we may fly in to Albequerque one day...surprise ya'll at church and then drive up to Colorado. Thanks for showing the pix of where we need to go.
I replied to Joe in the post below. :)
Becki that was a great post and pictures. I made it through the whole thing. I LOVE the picture of James and the boys. AND....the picture of you and James TOGETHER. Not many of those, It is a really good pcture.
The Estes park pictures brought back so many memories of mine and Sam's honeymoon. Since that is also where we had ours. I have that same picture of Stanley Hotel.
oh and, Katie's skirt is cute.
Sounds like a great time in Craig too. I am sure they loved having you guys there. Have a good time on the rest of your trip. I have no doubts you will. be safe.
Great post, Bec! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the pictures! It's SOOOOO gorgeous! And I see the elevation on Cameron Pass is only about 8,000' higher than the "eastern Continental Divide" we traveled over today in the Blue Ridge Mountains of NC. LOL! We had a very pretty drive today, too, but much different looking from your's.
oh Sister that is a great post and breath taking pictures, and it was nice having you all up here.. Love ya guys.....
Shew. can you hunt in that place?? can we say dinner!!! yum-o ;) hopefully no children read this, don't wanna make them sad. ;)
Great pictures and post Sister Becki. It makes me miss Colorado so bad. Sara's great great great grandfather was Estes himself. Poor guy, literally, sold off all his land and ended up just having the town named after him. Sara's relatives have there reunions quite often there still. It's a beautiful place. The pictures of you and the family are wonderful. You look very content and happy. I'm thankful you are having such a wonderful trip and able to visit the churches there. I'll be praying for the services
Whew! Made through the whole post, too.
It's easy to see why you Westerners love the West so much. Those pictures are gorgeous.
Sounds like you all are having a wonderful trip. :D So glad to hear it.
That's crazy that there's still that much snow, though. Just crazy. Roads closed until June. Good grief!!! ;-)
Jamey -- Seems weird to write back to you since I'm sitting in your living room right now. Ha! Loved the boulder comment. I didn't think of Dustin a single time, even surrounded by all of those huge rocks! :-) You guys really ought to make a trip up to Estes sometime. You'd LOVE it.
Sister Tammy -- I, personally, can't imagine why anybody would vacation anywhere ELSE so long as the state of Colorado is open. :-) We would LOVE for you to fly in to Albuquerque (and spend some time with us, if you want--we've got a great guest room!) for one of your trips. Come right ahead!
Tammy -- I always forget that you and Sam went to Estes Park for your honeymoon, too! How fun. What a great place. And you're right--there are far too few pictures of James and me together. In years to come, just judging by pictures as a record, people would wonder if we were ever in the same place at the same time. ;-)
Sister Janis -- We LOVED being with you guys in Craig and are already looking forward to next time!
Kasey -- As far as I know, there is no hunting in the Estes Park area as most of it is National Forest. What a gyp! I always get hungry for the wild meat when I see all of those crazy elk moseying around teasing us. Jerks. ;-)
Sister Marcia -- I think I had heard about Mr. Estes being a relative... Crazy! What a small world. How sad that he had nothing in the end. But if you're going to have a town named after you, at least it was in a GORGEOUS location, right?!
Amy -- Thans for sticking with me through the whole post. What fortitude! Ha! There is something about the West that is so... WESTERN! Sooooo easy to love. You should come see! (Brother Ammons is here right now--I won't tell him about this little conversation! Ha!)
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