Colorado Trip - Day 1

A week ago we set out on our first ever family vacation. My parents took the whole family to the mountains of Colorado; specifically, Green Mountain Falls. For the next 6 days I will be chronicling the trip day by day. I will tell you about all of the excursions we took and the wild animals we saw (including a black bear!). Steven took so many beautiful pictures & I am very excited to show them to you!

Last Monday we began our trip at 7:45 in the morning after picking up my mom. My dad and sister, Natalie, were already in Colorado. They had left the previous Thursday to go back packing. They hiked up the two largest mountains in Colorado, Mt. Elbert and Mt. Massive. Our journey got off to a rocky start as we drove through a torrential down pour for the first several hours. Just when it felt like the rain would never let up, the clouds abruptly parted and the sun shined the rest of the way.

We made great time and arrived to Green Mountain Falls at 4:30 (we gained an hour on the way which aided in our good timing). We beat my dad and sister and were looking forward to getting settled in the cabin, going grocery shopping, and possibly having dinner on the table by the time they arrived. Except, there was one small problem. We did not know where our cabin was. We had an address, but it belonged to a garage (very peculiar). After driving around in circles, we stopped at a little tavern where my mom walked up to a man drinking beer at the bar. She asked him if he knew where the Green Mountain Falls Resort was and he gave her some directions. As it turned out, his directions didn't produce anything. Perhaps he had been drinking too much beer.

So, we drove around some more and asked person after person if they could tell us where our cabin was. Everyone was able to make educated guesses that turned out to be wrong. To make matters worse, we did not get good cell phone reception in the mountains. We were starting to think that we had been scammed and that the whole town was in on it.

We eventually stopped driving around & stumbled upon a beautiful park situated around a pond. Steven and I let the girls get out and stretch their legs while we marveled in the scenery. We also discovered that even though we didn't get a strong enough cell phone signal to make a phone call, we could still send a text message. We sent my dad a message who then called the owner of our cabin, David. Dad let David know where we were and he promptly came to meet us and show us the way to our cabin. As it turns out, the address we had been looking for no longer exists. Go Figure! Also worth noting is that our cabin was situated in the mountains at the top of a mile long hill. There was no way we would have found it without help.

When it was all said and done, we had spent 2 hours looking for (and eventually gave up looking for) our cabin. It all turned out okay in the end because we stumbled upon a great Mexican food restaurant for dinner and got wonderful pictures at the park we found. Feast your eyes on the following pictures.

The sun as it started to set over the pond.

Even after a 9 hour drive, the girls cooperated and allowed Steven to take their pictures in front of this awe inspiring scenery (although you can tell by Audrey's face that she had been in a car seat for 9 hours)

This was honestly the most beautiful little park. Look at the quaint gazebo.

Madeleine took this picture. Not bad! She has her daddy's knack for photography.

The girls watching the ducks.

In this picture the girls are standing on the deck that was outside mine and Steven's bedroom. My parents were kind enough to give us the master suite!! Who gives up that kind of luxury?! My parents. :)

This concludes day one. Next up, a trip to the Dinosaur Resource Center and a hike.