Summer Adventure: Rock Creek Trail

Well, it's only my fifth post for the day, but it finally takes us up to the present. Our adventures today took us back to the fish hatchery to hike on another one of their trails. Today's trail: Rock Creek.

There was a beautiful little stream along the early part of the trail.

Tailynne loved posing in front of the stream.

Camden served as our guide with the map a few times.

Tailynne discovered two ants carrying off a work on the trail.

Laci and the kids posing in front of Rock Creek.

For a little while near the end, Laci and I both had a kid on our shoulders.

By the very end of the hike, Camden decided he wanted to walk on his own.
Of course, we had to stop to feed the fish after our hike.

The fish were swimming right up to the edge of the water to get the food. One of the fish was so big that as it turned around to go back in the water after getting its food, the stroke from its tail fin got high enough up to splash us!

Summer Adventure: White River, and Climax

Tuesday we went to a hiking trail off of Freemont Pass, just inside the boundaries of White River National Forest. We've done the trail on snow shoes, so we thought we'd give it a try on a summer hike.

We saw some beautiful scenery on our hike.

We weren't able to make it very far, because after a while, we discovered that the trail was still covered in snow.

So, we went to Climax to see some of the mining equipment, and play around on the rocks.

The dome at the mine is new--it's only been up for a couple weeks.

Tailynne loved climbing around on the big rocks at Climax.

Summer Adventure: Casa Bonita

We concluded our visit with Laci's family on Friday night with a visit to Casa Bonita.

Our table was very close to the bridge where you can watch the divrs at the water fall.

We saw several shows while we ate our dinner, including a fire juggler!

We took the kids through Black Bart's cave, and took them to the puppet show. Camden didn't react to the cave at all, but once he rock started talking before the puppet show, he started crying.

As busy as it was, we really enjoyed the atmosphere of the restaurant.

Summer Adventure: Coors Factory and River Walk

On Wednesday we spent the day exploring Golden.

In the morning we toured the Coors factory--the largest single-sight brewing company in the nation.

Laci and the kids in front of the brewing kettles.

Here's Tai enjoying a free sample at the end of the Coors tour. Yes, we all got free samples... of soft drinks.

In the afternoon, we walked around downtown Golden. Here is Talynne posing on a butterfly statue on the riverwalk.

On our way back to the car from our down-town adventure, we stopped and waded in the overflowing river.

Summer Adventure: Denver Zoo

Last week, we spent most of the week in the Denver area with Laci's parents. On Monday we spent eight hours at the Denver zoo. We saw a little bit of everything, including some places we hadn't seen before, like a path by the duck pond, where we saw some baby swans. We rode the train, and the caroucel, played in the new kid's wading area, and just enjoyed a great day. We also took tons of picturs as we experimented with our new camera. Here are some of our favories from that day:

Summer Adventure: Buena Vista Day Trip

One of our plans for this summer is to take some day trips to towns in the surrounding area that we either haven't been to, or have spent very little time in. Wednesday, we made our first day trip. We went to Buena Vista. We were away from home for eleven hours, so we'll just look at the highlights from our trip.

For part of the morning, we found a park with a nice playground for the kids to play on. Tai was very excited that she could climb this ladder.

Camden loved the tunnel on the playground.

We went on a walk around a pond in one of the parks, and found this statue. Tai wanted to pose in front of it with her dandelion.

In the afternoon, we went hiking for a few hours. This rock was perfect for the kids to sit in for a picture.

Thom carrying Camden on the hiking trail.

Tai was our little trooper on the hike. She walked almost the entire way on her own, even at the steepest part of the trail.

Tai let her imagination run wild while we were hiking. She hid behind this rock and told us she was hiding from a witch.

Even Camden did a fair amount of walking on the trail!

Near the trail head there was a sculpture of a living room set. We couldn't resist taking a "rest" on it after our hike.

Laci's boss told her about a road where you could drive through some old train tunnels, so on our way home, we took that road. The tunnels were awesome, but it was a little nerve-wracking since they were single-lane tunnels.

Summer Adventure: Heritage Museum and National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum

We're a couple days behind on our adventures now, but we'll catch you up. On Tuesday we went to two more of Leadville's museums. Since we had more time on this day, we tackled the big ones.

Our first stop on Tuesday was the Heritage Museum, which takes you through Leadville's history in two stories worth of exhibits.

Tailynne standing in front of an old-fassioned grand piano. She pointed out to us that there were two "pianos" in this room--you can see the organ next to the piano.

Camden loved the manequine of the soldier from the 10th Mountain Division.

Our favorite exhibit at the Heritage Museum is the Ice Palace exhibit. It has a scale model of the Ice Palace. Every 1/4 inch of the model represents 1 foot of the actual Ice Palace.

Our last stop at the Heritage Museum was the equipment they have on display outside.

After the Heritage Museum, we went to one of the parks for lunch.

After we ate, we let the kids play on the playground for a little while to get some energy out... We played a little, too.

After lunch we went to the National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum. This is the largest of the museums in Leadville, and is in what used to be the high school.

Near the front of the museum was a sculpture of a castle made from a variety of stones and precious metals.

Camden loved looking at all the different rocks in the gallery. They had different stones and gems from all around the world.

There were two mine replications that you could walk through. Here is one of the dummies in the hard rock mine, waiting to be lifted out.

In the Cole Mine replica, there was a donkey pulling a cart full of coal.

Laci and Thom tried their hands at prospecting. It just would have been nice to know that the gloves weren't water proof first. It took a long time to get the stink out.

One of the exhibits showed all of the house-hold conveniences that come as a result of mining. Tailynne loved the potty display.