Touring Southern Colorado, Part 3: Durango

For the last few days of our vacation, we stayed in Durango, a cute little town in southwestern Colorado. We did a lot of walking around town in Durango and relaxing in our condo, so it really felt like a vacation.

We did take one hike near Durango, but didn't make it all the way to our destination. We tried to climb Engineer Mountain (Grant and Dale were really excited about this particular peak because of its name), a 12,927-foot peak northeast of Durango. Engineer Mountain doesn't have any maintained trails leading to it's summit, and you might understand why that is by looking at this picture of the peak.

The last few hundred feet are extremely steep, climbing up scree slopes and scrambling through boulders to the top. All four of us (Dale, Grant, Adelaida, and I) got pretty close to the top, but we didn't feel comfortable taking Adelaida up the scree (it really required both hands and both feet to climb), so Grant stayed at the base of the scree slope while Dale and I continued up a little farther. By the time we got close to the top, the sky was looking pretty black, so we started back down and almost beat the rain back to the car.

We also saw some beautiful columbines on the trail.


Adelaida enjoyed hanging out with Grant during one of our Durango meals.


Grant, Dale, and Adelaida on the trail, with Engineer Mountain in the background.

Touring Southern Colorado, Part 2: Mount Crested Butte

After leaving Pagosa Springs, we headed up to Mount Crested Butte, which was my favorite of the three towns we stayed in on this trip. (On our way to Crested Butte, we saw an actual wild moose, grazing by the side of the road! This was my first ever moose-sighting, so I was pretty excited about it.)

We again stayed in a condo, which is a great way to travel with a group -- we had plenty of space to play euchre, a full kitchen so we could cook our own meals and store food, and still had separate bedrooms and bathrooms. This was a two-bedroom condo, so Adelaida slept in the closet of our bedroom. We were lucky to be taking this trip while she was still not mobile!

Jamie decided not to join us on our one big hike in Crested Butte, so Dale, Grant, Adelaida, and I set out one morning in search of a mountain lake. We found it, after six miles, five stream crossings (including one in which we had to wade across a snow-melt stream that was about ten feet across and two feet deep -- and so cold!), and dozens of muscles that I had forgotten I had! The lake sure was beautiful, though.

Adelaida had a favorite chair at the condo that she just loved to sit in. It was a pretty big chair, and she's a pretty little girl.


The same chair served as a napping place for Jamie, Adelaida, and Grant, who were all exhausted after a walk around town.


Still another picture of Adelaida on her favorite chair, this time sharing the blanket with her daddy. I don't remember exactly why she didn't have any clothes on at this time -- maybe this was taken just before or after her bath?


Grant, Dale, and Adelaida wading across a stream on our hike.


We all sat around at the lake once we reached it, snacking and resting our legs and feet.

Touring Southern Colorado, Part 1: Pagosa Springs

This post and the pictures I'm including here are a little bit dated, but I wanted to share a trip we took this summer with all of my dedicated readers :)

Back in the middle of July, the stars aligned with Dale's work (he had a two-week lull on his program), my work (I was waiting for someone to fix my glovebox), Grant's work (he was being laid off and his company didn't really care if he went to work anyway), and Jamie's pregnancy (she was still able to fly and was seeing her doctor only every two weeks). Rather than just talking about what we might all do with our free time, we actually acted on it and took a ten-day vacation together in southern Colorado.

Our first stop was Pagosa Springs, which was a pretty neat small town -- in the mountains, with a sulfur spring in the middle of the town and several nearby hikes. The most memorable part of Pagosa Springs was "Vince Guitar," a waiter at a Cajun restaurant that we almost walked out of before we even sat down (it had a bit of a dank to it). Instead, we decided to stick it out and each ordered something different from the menu. And wow! it was amazingly good! The etouffee, the okra, the gumbo, the catfish, the sausage, it was all soooooo good. "Vince" made it even better with his antics, like proclaiming that he was the best thing on the menu and offering me himself, drenched in etouffee. A good time was had by all that night.

We took one long hike near Pagosa Springs,
up a canyon to a gorgeous waterfall. Although she was very pregnant at the time, Jamie did great, and of course Adelaida loved sleeping in her backpack on her daddy's back.

Pagosa Springs also has a very nice wild animal park that we visited, and we were lucky enough to be there at the time of their daily feeding tour. We saw a brown bear, several black bears, coyotes, wolves, an elk, mountain lions, and several other animals being fed. The keeper talked to us about the different animals and several of them performed tricks for us before they were fed.



Dale and Adelaida are ready to find the waterfall.


If you look really closely in this picture, you can see Dale (wearing a blue shirt) and Adelaida (wearing white), just to the right of the base of the waterfall, framed by a darker patch of rock.


This is another of my favorite pictures of Dale and Adelaida, taken on our Pagosa Springs hike. I have this picture set as my computer background on my home computer.

Telluride Vacation, Part 2

Here are more pictures from our fun family vacation to Telluride.

Laura and Sarah, with her adorable toothy smile


Adelaida enjoys sliding down the slide at the Mountain Village playground


Elizabeth had fun throwing the frisbee in the town plaza


Elizabeth was quite taken with Adelaida and was very gentle with her


Elizabeth helped her Aunt Marie and Mamaw shell peas, while Adelaida watched


Adelaida took a long hike up to a waterfall on her daddy's back


We saw a beautiful waterfall on our hike


Adelaida hanging out with her Momma and Daddy at the top of a mountain


Sarah and Adelaida enjoyed watching each other have tummy time


Our rental house had a swing just the right size for Adelaida

Telluride Vacation, Part 1

Last weekend, Dale, Adelaida, and I met Dale's family in Colorado for a real vacation. We rented a little house in Telluride and met up with Charlotte and with Richard, Laura, and their two girls. This was the first time for Richard and Laura to meet Adelaida, and our first time to meet their younger daughter Sarah. The three girls were quite taken with each other -- Adelaida spent quite a bit of time just looking at Elizabeth and Sarah, and Elizabeth was especially generous in providing Adelaida with toys.

In addition to playing with her cousins, Adelaida got to spend some good time with her Mamaw, who may have been a little unprepared for Adelaida's new interest in grabbing people's faces and glasses! It's hard to live so far away from our family, and this was only Charlotte's third time seeing Adelaida: she came out to visit when Adelaida was only two weeks old, then we visited her in Colorado when Adelaida was ten weeks old. Of course, Adelaida is quite different now, at six months, than she was when Charlotte saw her last at ten weeks old!

Telluride is very much a tourist town, although its high season is predominantly the winter. There are ski slopes all around the town and ski lifts up the sides of the valley. Telluride also has a free gondola that operates year-round and ferries people between the town of Telluride and Telluride's sister town of Mountain Village, located just above Telluride. The first day of our vacation, we all rode the gondola up to Mountain Village and played a round of disc golf on Mountain Village's course (actually, Dale and Richard played a round of disc golf; Charlotte, Laura, and I all played about a hole-and-a-half before deciding that the it would be a great opportunity for the boys to catch up with each other).

We enjoyed walking around Mountain Village, which has a great playground, a rock-climbing wall, a duck pond, and plazas that we used to teach Elizabeth to throw a frisbee. We ate lunch, then took the gondola back to Telluride that afternoon. When we returned to Telluride, Dale, Adelaida, and I walked through town a bit and found a wonderful farmer's market. We bought steaks, bread, and salad greens and (after a brief and much-needed afternoon nap) cooked dinner at the house.



After dinner, we all celebrated Sarah's first birthday, a few weeks early. She opened her presents (with help from her older sister), then ate her birthday cupcake, using not only her hands and mouth, but her forehead, nose, cheeks, arms, and chest. Fortunately, Laura had the foresight to strip Sarah down to her diaper before giving her the cupcake!

The next day, we took a hike in the mountains just above Telluride, up to a beautiful waterfall called Bridal Veil Falls. At only 2 1/2 years old, Elizabeth was quite a trooper on the hike, but after about an hour was tired of both being carried and walking. She, Laura, Charlotte, and Sarah headed back to the house while Dale, Richard, Adelaida, and I continued. The waterfall was very pretty, and the view of Telluride from above the falls was spectacular. We rested that afternoon, then went out to a great restaurant in town that night for dinner.

The last day of our vacation, we headed back up the gondola toward Mountain Village, but decided to ride only to the first stop, Station St. Sophia, and hike the rest of the way. It was a nice hike through aspen groves and coniferous forests, with beautiful views of the valley below. We spent some time in Mountain Village before returning back to Telluride and a relaxing evening at the house.

We really enjoyed spending time with Charlotte and with Richard and Laura and their girls, and it was nice to do it in Telluride, where things like work and housework couldn't get in the way of enjoying each other's company! I'm especially glad that Adelaida got to spend time with her cousins, Elizabeth and Sarah. Although she may be too young to remember this visit several years from now, we have pictures of the three girls together that we'll always treasure.

Red Canyon

Dale and I took Adelaida on her first "real" hike today--we've taken her on several small hikes, both from our house and on the Albuquerque side of the Sandia mountains. None of those hikes were more than two or three miles long, and we either carried her or strapped her to our chests in a simple carrier.


Today, we drove down to the east side of the Monzano mountains and hiked up the Spruce Spring Trail, across the Monzano Crest Trail, and down the Red Canyon Trail, a total of about eight miles. It took us four hours to do the entire hike, including baby-mandated stops for nursing and diaper changes. Adelaida rode the entire way in a hiking backpack that we got just for her--it's a large external-frame backpack that has a seat for Adelaida, space for all of our gear, and a sunshade to keep her shaded in the sun and dry in the rain. She slept for close to three hours in the backpack, so it must have been pretty comfortable for her (except that I kept messing with her--tucking her hands inside the backpack so she'd stay warm, making sure her face wasn't mashed in the blanket, adjusting her had--and she kept waking up).

The entire backpack is quite a contraption, and relatively heavy even before we add Adelaida's gear (diapers, wipes, dirty diaper bag, diaper changing pad, extra clothes, sun shade hat, hat to keep her head warm, two blankets, toys to keep her occupied, and so much more), Adelaida (all 12 pounds, 10 ounces of her!), and our gear (water, food, first aid kit, and windbreakers). With Dale carrying the backpack with Adelaida and me carrying only two liters of water, Dale was weighted down enough that we were walking at about the same pace (Dale usually slows down to allow me to keep up with him). The backpack itself has several neat features, including a hand mirror to look at the baby while carrying her (no, Dale isn't just admiring himself on the trail!).

We saw evidence of several animals and came within about fifteen feet of a very large animal. We had stopped on the trail and I looked up the hill to our left and saw a large moving mass. I immediately identified it as a bear and my heart started racing...then it started walking toward us and I realized that it wasn't a bear and must be a mountain lion, which I know will eat young babies--but seconds later, it moved out into the open and I saw it was a common grey mule deer: an herbivore, not much taller than I am, and more scared of me than I should have been of it. The bear-mountainlion-deer calmly walked away from us without even glancing in our direction. Nevertheless, I was really frightened, and spent the rest of the hike imagining bears and mountain lions everywhere I looked.

We completed the hike safely--without spotting a single carniverous animal larger than my foot--and bought some of the famed Carrizozo cider on the way home. We got home and made dinner, at which Adelaida had another exciting first...but more about that in a future post ;)