Everyone has a story to tell, here's mine sprinkled with some creative projects along the way.
Thank you for stopping by and I hope you come back again.



Sunday, February 20, 2011

Our Saturday's excursion *photo heavy*

So yesterday we went out on another exploring trip. These past weekends have been either snowing or the kids are super sick that we haven't really gone anywhere. It's funny cause I even got an email from my sister in law asking if we've gone on any local excursions lately. This comment made me smile, knowing that all that time consuming work of uploading photos and typing something for the blog, sharing our trips is all worth while. Knowing our family reads them is really a great reward for me. :)

So going to back to yesterday, this past week has been really nice around here with temperatures in the 40's-50's. Mitch wanted us to explore the Rampart Reservoir so after breakfast, we jumped in the car and was on the road to start our day trip

It was so beautiful out there. As you can see in the photo above, it was all blue skies and bright sun.


We can be procrastinators around here. One of the things we keep on telling ourselves to do is take a trip to the local AAA office to get local maps but alas, we still haven't gotten around to it. So for the time being, we use Mitch's work laptop and his installed map to navigate our way around. BTW we also have a GPS but for some reason that doesn't work well for us, especially when we go up the mountain ranges.

Anyways we took a road to the reservoir that started at the entrance of Garden of the Gods. We decided to stop a bit and take photos....

I took this shot so people can see how big these boulders are. See how tiny Maddie is here compared to the rock behind her?


The sun was up high at this time so it was luck for me to find a small crevice in between the rock formations that had some shade for this shot.


With this one, as you can see that the sun's rays had some effects on this photo. I still love it though.


The left boulder is between the streets where cars pass. The entrance is on the other side and so the road that is closest to my family is the one that exits the park. As you can also see, there's another boulder on the right side. It's a tight squeeze to go through these boulders but it's a fun experience.


This was our view driving up the mountains. I love how clear the skies are and you can see an overlooking view of the valley down there.

When we finally reached the reservoir, it was closed! I blame Mitch for that for not checking online before we headed out the door. After our disappointment, we had lunch at a nearby McD.

Knowing my disappointment, Mitch suggested we check this out....

In 2006, we went to Mesa Verde to check out the Cliff Dwellings there. I was so amazed by it that when he mentioned Cliff dwellings I was all for it. When we got there, we were surprised to know how expensive it cost to get in. Luckily the guy at the entrance gate cut us a great deal. He let us in paying for just one adult ticket which was $9.50. It would've costs as close to $30 if he didn't. It was a good thing he gave us a deal, otherwise we would've turned around and left.


According to the guy, these cliff dwellings were moved from Mesa Verde in the early 1900's. Thank goodness for the good deal he cut us because we would not pay regular price to see dwellings that are not even original to the area.


The kids, to the dismay of most of the tourists, was going in and out of the crevices and little rooms in the dwellings. We sure were getting a ton of "bad looks". Here's Maddie inside of those dwellings.


this is the scope of the tour. Yes, it's pretty sad compared to the Mesa Verde ones. They did have a small museum and of course a gift shop off to the right side of this area.


Me and the kids outside of the museum.


And the tipi house by the parking lot. See the kids, yes they thought everything here was a playground.

and then afterwards, we went back to Garden of the Gods. We were there last summer and we didn't get to see all of it because it rained on us...

We actually got stuck for about 45 minutes hiding under the rocks bec. we were in the middle of touring some boulders when in poured on us.

then yesterday seemed to be more promising as far as weather was concerned to we tried our luck again....

to see these big rocks up close you need to hike to them and that's what we did.




Mitch decided that he needed photos of me climbing up the rocks. If you know me, you know I'm afraid of heights so he figured this would be a sense of accomplishment for me, looking at these photos. I'm not sure if I'm sold with that idea but I was happy to see such a nice background behind me.










We were enjoying our hike when the weirdest thing happened....the clouds started to turn gray and we were feeling sprinkles. Oh crap, our curse continues. After much pleading with Mitch, we finally turned around and got to our car in the nick of time because as soon as we got in our car, the rain poured in.


Here's the view on the ride home. A totally 180 degree turn from what it looked like in the morning. After this, I'm now thinking that our trips to Garden of the Gods are totally cursed. This is the second time it rained on us! How weird is that?!

Over all it was still a great day. Thanks for stopping by.

Till next time,
Grace

1 comment:

Lori said...

Grace thanks for sharing. I love to see and hear where your excursions take you for the day. Can't wait to visit one day soon hopefully...Lori T.