Getting away!

We just got back from a three day trip to Estes Park, which is just up the road from us, but up the road from us in the mountains, and I love the mountains. Possibly more than the sea. I'm not alone of course, which is why it’s ridiculously crowded in downtown Estes, and ridiculously overbooked at every possible place you can think of in July. We found a place a mile outside the Rocky Mountain National Park entrance, on the Fall River, which is a stream, but not a baby stream. A full, loud, lovely mountain stream that winds its way doing its thing, not caring about anything except its path. So lovely.

There aren’t a lot of deep thoughts to share about this trip beyond ‘wow. I wish I could live in the mountains’ and then the ‘okay but what would living in the mountains, year-round, entail, logistically? I could probably get from the mountains to the mountain town, but leaving in winter, with my not-love of driving… would I NEED to leave the mountain town in winter/ever? Do drones deliver yet? What do I have to do to actually afford the mountain place I want? Would anyone else in my family come? Maybe they could visit…?’

I unplugged. It was great. I'm now going to work on unplugging on the weekends, too, because life is better when it's not being tweeted.

So yes, I love mountains. I love woods. I love being in woods in the mountains, and I enjoy the fact I live so close to things I love. No deep thoughts.

Things I learned about my family this little getaway:

• A 4.5 mile hike is okay. A 7-mile hike is not. Even if it has waterfalls and a river and a lake full of lily pads. It wasn’t supposed to be a 7-mile hike...
• Mountain streams are cool and everyone in my family loves mountain streams, but nobody
  
  loves them as much as Bear and I, who logged the most time going outside to watch and listen to the stream, if anyone was actually logging time. And mountain streams are pretty fast and pretty loud, and a lot of fun.
• Rock shops. We went to a rock shop, and it was one of the highlights of the trip because who doesn’t love peridot, rose quartz, random slabs of Colorado marble, chunks of onyx and adventurine? There was also a museum and lots of stones and trinkets to buy. The boys got hematite bracelets and Turbo bought peridot because it’s his favorite (who knew?) and Bear got a pyramid thing-a-ma-jig. We did end up buying a rose and black marble chess set because it was cool.
• Bumper boats are the best. Seriously. The best.
• My sons have no consideration or courtesy when driving go-karts. Seriously, boys, you had to lap me? Twice? And was it necessary to ram into me? I’m your mother, Turbo (who, I belatedly am realizing, is a more apt nickname than I ever intended it to be).
• Bear finds the BEST shops. He led us to an interior design shop in downtown Estes that had the best woodland animal plates and mugs. I can guarantee you that between the time I write this, and post this, I’ll have already looked up those woodland animal plates and mugs...
• Husbear is the best at Marco Polo, but his skills are far too advanced for his family, who are not stealthy in the water at all.
• We all agree that having a pool all to ourselves is amazeballs, and are really happy everyone else was out and about doing non-pool things while we were in the pool.
• The hot tub on the balcony was pretty cool, since there’s just something nice about being outside in hot water while stars are twinkling. Except when you’re not wearing glasses, and then they are just blurry light spots that look like maybe dust.
• Hummingbirds are fun to watch.
• Birds are fun to watch. Pretty sure I saw the same black-billed magpie flying about.

There really aren’t a lot of 12 year olds who don’t enjoy nature, and mostly, I think, stick someone in nature long enough and they’ll get it.

Now, I have to resist the temptation to look up every cabin located in Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park and plan more trips than I can take...

In the meantime, enjoy a lovely slideshow of some of our trips highlights :)