Colorado Trip: An Overview

 A couple of weeks ago we took a road trip.  Our good friends from college are stationed with the Air-force near Colorado Springs.  They offered us a room, so we took them up on it.

We packed up and left on Tuesday at 8:30 pm with the hope that the kids would sleep the whole way.  (It was said that it is a 10 hour trip.)

 Hannalee and Tayo packed in the car just as we were leaving.

I saw this on Pinterest.  I tied a string across the back seat of the car.  On one end was a picture of our house on the other end was a picture of Colorado. Then I put the car on the string so that it could move across the string.  The little dots are stickers.  There were about 10 dots.  For every hour in the car, Hannalee could move the car to the next dot.  It helped her see how close or far away we were.  It helped minimalize the question, "Are we there yet?"

The drive there went fairly well.  Bob and I took turns driving and napping.  I didn't feel as tired as I thought I would staying up all night.  Hannalee didn't sleep well in the car and would wake up every time we stopped.  It would take her another hour to go back to sleep.  But she was pretty happy.  Tayo did great on the drive there and slept almost the whole way.

Since we are slow drivers we didn't get there until about 10:00 am on Wednesday.  It was so much fun to see our old friends and where they live.  They live in a place that reminds me of Island Park, ID but a lot more populated.  It was beautiful.  Pine trees everywhere. 

 A road to their house.

 

 Just 10 minutes from their house.

One of Bob's favorite things about our trip was the wild life, which was every where.  There were deer everywhere. They have a doe and twin fawns living in their back yard. 

 

 

 A buck just chilling like 10 feet away.

We also saw a fox just 6 feet from the car.  It wasn't nervous at all and didn't even run off.  But the most exciting animal we got to see was a bear.  We were going for a walk to the park behind their house and spotted it wandering through the trees by the houses near us.  It was a big old bear and was crazy to see so close.  On the way home Hannalee said, "Watch out for the bear.  He might bite us."  Ethan, their oldest boy said, "No, he'll eat us."  Hannalee worried about that one for a while. :0)

 
Hannalee was quite whinny when we first got there.  I was ready to ship her home, but after warming up she became friends with their little boy.  After that she was happier, but louder. They were rowdy and crazy. They were funny to watch play. They played dinosaurs.  Hannalee's play sounded like this: "The mama dinosaur is making mac and cheese for dinner.  Hold the baby dino.  He's a a nice one."  Hunter's play sounded like this: "The dinosaur ate this one. Roar!"

 

 Hunter and Hannalee

 Tayo, Hunter, Ethan, Marie, Hannalee

 Tayo made friends with Flynt.

 The weather there was WONDERFUL!  It was in the 70's and rained every afternoon. We enjoyed some awesome parks.  I wish we had some of these around here.

A park we stopped at on the way home.

We enjoyed this vacation so much.  Staying with our friends was wonderful. We enjoyed late night games and talking.  We hope to go back next summer.

The trip home was a lot less enjoyable.  It took 15 hours!  We left in the morning and drove all day with many stops.  The kids did good for the first 5 hours. (Except, we found out Hannalee gets car sick.  We were driving down a windy road near the Continental Divide, so I can't blame her.)

 

Who knew that stuffing pipe cleaners in an old container could be so entertaining.

By the time we reached Utah everyone was ready to be home.  Hannalee couldn't fall asleep and Tayo would sleep for 45 min then wake up kicking and screaming till he was so tired he fell back to sleep.

More specifics about the trip to come...