No More Roughing It!!!

Its Saturday at 5:00 PM Mountain Time. As opposed to swatting deer flies, mosquitoes and being saddle sore, we’re sitting in a pool-side cabana at the incredible Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs. We are “drinking Mojitos and making great decisions” as my husband says. We’ve been doing that a little too long I think, as he’ll only answer to “El Cubano Grande” now.
I’ve lost track of how many times Berkeley has gone up and down the water slide, and I note as I’m typing this that, because of the time I’ve spent in the pool today, my fingernails are cleaner than they’ve been in a month. The incredible luxury of this hotel is of course the complete opposite of the rustic surrounds we’ve had for weeks now, but I can honestly say that I prefer the latter. Although I haven’t asked Bill yet, I’m sure he’d disagree as he appeared panicked when the mint in his last drink wasn’t properly muddled.

Our dog Ally has been staying at Grandma’s house as the hotel frowns upon critters that are having intestinal issues - as she is right now. Otherwise, they happily allow dogs! Grandma spilled the beans this morning and admitted they’ve been feeding Ally table scraps, Bill's pet peeve. When he heard the news, he turned a color I’ve never really seen before- but managed to calm down as luckily the cabana girl was delivering his beef satay at that moment.

We’ve shipped Berkeley off to Grandma’s as well this evening so we can enjoy “date night” (Berkeley wasn’t fond of the notion however). After what I’m sure will be a great evening with the most charming, handsome, intelligent, sensitive man I’ve ever met, (warning: El Cubano Grande dictated that last part) we’ll hit the road again tomorrow. Only 800 or so miles left back to the west coast. I wonder how many stops at McDonalds that is?

A Glacier in Colorado?

Yes, there are glaciers in Colorado! I was quite surprised. I have been coming here for years and never knew they existed. We took a trip with our good friend Kitty (who moved here last year from Manhattan Beach) to St. Mary Alice Glacier near Idaho Springs. What an amazing place! It was beautiful. There were even some teenagers hiking their skis up. Imagine, skiing in July! The hike up was not terribly long but it was a bit tricky. There was lots of unsettled rock, so you really had to watch your ankles. When we made it to the top we were very surprised by a beautiful alpine lake that was filled with glacial runoff. It took about two seconds for Ally to realize there was water…SPLASH…she was in!

Kitty’s niece McCall was visiting, so in preparation for the hike I ran out the prior day and bought a couple of kid-friendly GPS devices to get the kids excited about the hike and finding a treasure. Thank goodness it didn’t take much! Berk and McCall turned the devices and we were off! We discovered the first cache was only 2500 feet ahead of us. It was quite fun to watch Berk. Here was my little one (who has been complaining about hiking since we left Lake Tahoe) running ahead of all of us following the GPS. She wanted to be the one to find the treasure! It took a little bit of searching but we did it…we found the cache. Berk was ecstatic! When opened we discovered all sorts of trinkets and an interesting log. This cache was hidden almost 4 years ago and has had people from all over the world discover it – England, India, Australia, etc. There were many international coins left from these folks, so that was a point of interest. In the end McCall decided to trade a rope bracelet for another one and Berk left a band-aid for a little plastic whale! They were both very excited. Who knows, maybe I can get Berk to enjoy hiking a bit more with the “treasures” as an incentive.

Do you have any idea what Geo-Caching is?

Well, I didn’t either until 6:30 this morning. My sister Elaine and I went on a hike through the Black Forest (NE of Colorado Springs). It was beautiful, but that was not the fun part. There is a web site called http://www.geocahing.com/ that tells you where “cache’s” are buried for anyone to find. What a fun way to get the kids in to hiking. In fact it was so much fun that I ran over to REI and bought two GPS devices that have more than 500K pre-programmed geo-cache sites. Literally, all you do it turn on the system, the satellites find you and tell you how far away the first cache is. You then follow the arrows and distance indicators until you find the treasure.

The treasures are quite fun. You never know what you will find. Most of the time they are Tupperware-like boxes full of little trinkets. The rules are that you can take something from the treasure – if – you put something in as a replacement.

More to come on geo-caching later. We have a date with our friend Kitty and her niece tomorrow for another hike. This time its to a glacier near the town of St. Mary/Idaho Springs.

My Sister – The Deer Whisperer

My sister Elaine and her husband Rob own a beautiful home in an area outside of COS called the Black Forest. They were fortunate enough to find an amazing home (with lots of additional acreage) on the edge of a beautiful forest. The views of Pikes Peak from their decks are incredible! Berk has been fascinated with Aunt Elaine’s garden. She planted all sorts of vegetables a few weeks ago, and they have really started to grow in. Unfortunately, the day before we arrived, a hail storm hit and destroyed a good portion of the garden. Elaine was thoughtful enough to grab a handful of the falling hail and froze it. They were easily larger than a quarter. Berk has been playing with them for two days now. I don’t think I have ever seen hail that large either. I am surprised that the only damage done was to the garden.

Another surprising thing is Elaine's new friend...an outcast female deer that visits the yard every morning. It has become so accustomed to seeing her that Elaine has been able to feed it by hand. One of the deer’s favorite foods…nectarines!

The Push is On

Our time is winding down unfortunately. We only have one major stop left, and that is Colorado Springs to visit my parent s and sisters family. We need to get to COS by the end of the day, which means a full day of driving (apx. 12 hours). I hope the GPS system sends us on a populated route vs. the scenic ones. At this point we just need to get there.

We stayed at another KOA last night after the Moose run-in, but unfortunately Berk did not like it as much as the others. It seemed to be more RV focused, so there were not a lot of kids playing on the grounds, which means that Mom gets to be the primary source of entertainment! In addition to the KOA, they also ran a whitewater rafting business on the Snake River. I am sure this is where they made the most money. We ate a quick dinner and went to bed. Our Kozy Kabin (as they call it) was right on the river. It was nice to go to sleep to the sound of running water, but is did get cold. Thank goodness for our REI sleeping bags! They are the best!

A Close Encounter - of a Moosey Kind

We have finally left our new “best stop” – the Covered Wagon Ranch – and driven the short 130 miles south to the Grand Tetons. Yes, for those of you who are even slightly wondering, the name was derived from the French. The literal translation is “Three Grand Breasts” and if you have ever seen them in person it’s hard to disagree. What you may not know is that the Tetons were originally one huge mountain. About 1.5 billion years ago two large sections (on the left and right hand side of the peak) broke off and fell down in to what is now a valley. The last ice age also helped out by forcing the debris even further down the mountain, so what you now have are three peaks vs. only one.

We drove in to the southern entrance to Tetons National Park through Jackson Hole. It’s a small park by most standards, but none the less breathtaking when you get in. We slowly drove a couple of miles in to get a feel for the area when the paved road narrowed and turned to gravel. It was difficult to get two cars through without someone giving the right of way. Luckily we were neither in front of nor behind any other car when we made a sharp right hand turn around a blind curve – and BAM – there they were – two HUGE moose about 12 inches from the right side of the car. Thanks goodness I was only travelling about 10 MPH! As soon as I made the turn the poor moose literally must have jumped out of his skin as his reaction was to try and donkey-kick the car to protect himself. My heart stopped, Berk yelled “look out”, her jaw dropped to the ground, and I tried to speed up to get past him in hopes of avoiding the local body shop. Luckily it worked! I stopped about another twenty feet up the road to see if all was OK and then some knucklehead in a Jeep, travelling much too fast, drove right off the road to avoid the same moose. If there was anyone who deserved a little driving wake-up call it was him. He recovered from the near miss, got back on the road and did his very best to pass me within about 30 seconds of all this happening – all on the same gravel road that could barely hold two cars. Berk summed up the close encounter quite well when she said “I never knew moose’s were THAT big” – and neither did I.

Rider of the Week

As the afternoon wore on we realized we had better get back to the Ranch as it was going to be BBQ night. Dinner is promptly at 7:00 PM each night, and is not to be missed. The food is amazing. We all met down at the clubhouse where the kids played pool and foosball, while the adults got to know each other a little better around a bonfire. After dinner everyone (not just the kids) got “ropin” lessons from the wranglers. What fun! I must admit it’s not an easy task! The kids then got to head down to the corals and feed the horses. Berk finally made it back up from the corrals at about 10:00 PM! She is living the night life on this trip since it does not get dark until so late in the evening. She walked up the trail with Ally in toe (who was even dirtier that Berk), and promptly announced she needed to go to bed – so off we went. We had hoped to go to bed a little bit earlier tonight since we planned an early morning trail ride in to Yellowstone. Oh well, maybe tomorrow night we will get more sleep.

Before the night was over little Berk was given a wonderful award – she was named Rider of the Week! She received a "real" black horse shoe with has her name on it and a pretty pink bow. The person who gave her the award is Valerie, one of the main wranglers. She and Berk bonded over thre trip and I can see why. Valerie is terrific and really has a way with kids. She is SO proud of the award – and so am I!