Back to the Cabin

We drove to the cabin this weekend and saw an amazing sunset on our drive up.



We also saw this pink rainbow. Not sure if it was an actual rainbow or what, but it looked cool!



There is a calendar that I manually change the date on whenever we are at the cabin. It had been exactly two months (June 19 to August 19) since we were last up there as a family (not counting Steve's lumberjack expeditions). Such a bummer that we missed spending the best summer months up there due to the storm damage.

While Steve was at a logging seminar Saturday morning, the kids and I did some exploring. First, we found this stick bug on Steve's chainsaw case. I totally thought it was a stick and was about to pick it up when I realized it had legs.





Walking down the driveway to look at the damage and remaining trees.





One lone tree.



Steve worked on cutting up more trees in the backyard of the cabin. He asked if he should make some chairs for us to sit on by the campfire out of the stumps. I asked if he could make one like they do at the lumberjack show at the state fair. He did a great job--it turned out awesome!



I started to make a giant fire pit in our backyard. All of our neighbors have these wonderful fire pits that are made from the rocks on their land and I decided it would be smart to have one to help burn some of the brush we will have. Our little metal frame one from Menard's just wasn't cutting it.

I dug out the base and our neighbor came over and said to dig it out even one foot larger around the base. The kids helped me gather rocks from the gravel pit. We'll have to finish the project next time we are up there.





We stopped at my parents' house on the way home Sunday to catch my hometown parade and see my dad march with the American Legion.







Coordinating outfits.



The cousins all swam at my parents' house afterwards. Good fun!

Hot Springs at Mount Princeton

We headed back to Colorado Springs on Monday and made a stop at the hot springs at Mount Princeton on our way home. We first visited the upper pools, which had a water slide, hot tub, kiddie pool, and two other pools connected by a lazy river.

All the pools were naturally heated by hot springs and ranged in temperature from 93 degrees to 104 degrees. The hot tub and kiddie pool were so hot, as my nephew said, "it was like fire." We had a blast swimming and the view of the mountains surrounding us was awesome.















We then moved to the lower pools, which had a swim and lap pool, a therapy pool (this was soooo hot) and the river with the natural hot spring water, which is what we tried out first.

















The river was amazing. The water flowing down the river was ice cold. But the water behind my back, up against the bank, was so incredibly hot that I burnt my toes when testing the water. Someone told us that the water temperature from the springs was 135 degrees. The trick was to move the rocks and make a little space that had water flowing in from each source to achieve the perfect temperature and relaxation area. It looks like we are sitting in mud, but we are actually sitting in super clear water with the sandy river bottom.



Steve and Maddie stayed at the river to engineer the perfect combination of cold and hot water while the rest of us moved to the pool area.























We had a lot of fun and the kids were exhausted after all the swim time outdoors.

Burro Days

Saturday was the start of Burro Days, which began with dog races for the kids in Alma. Ryan and Hillary came up from Denver and brought their two dogs, so some of the kids were able to race with them.

Mogli ready for a workout.





Ready to run with Thumper and Mogli.



No dogs for us, thank you very much.



Go, go, go!



Prizes for everyone.



The main event for the day was the llama race. I had a hard enough time doing a 5K last summer on my own, I can't imagine what it must be like to drag a llama (because I'm sure it's not interested in cooperating that much) through a cross country trail. The sad thing is the winning time is only about three minutes slower than my time last year!

We barely got back to Fairplay in time to watch them take off after the dog races, but were able to watch them on the open trail for a while.





Sunday were the burro races. This is a marathon (actually, 29 miles) up the mountain and back. With a burro.



And they're off...



The kids watched the parade and got their fill of candy.





Now this is the way to travel with a burro!







We relaxed back at the cabin in the afternoon. Becky gave manicures and pedicures to the girls.







4-wheeler rides with Uncle Dan and Papa.