Steamboat Springs

We escaped to Steamboat Springs for a long weekend in July and it was a lovely getaway. We started with a nice walk to Fish Creek Falls which was really pretty! I do love me a waterfall. Or a river or a creek or mostly anything with water.

That night we went to the Steamboat Springs Pro Rodeo. Neither of us had been to a rodeo in a long time and it was fun! Those cowboys are crazy!! Man, watching their backs snap back as they try to ride a bull or bucking bronco I'm not sure how they come back to work over and over. One thing is sure - this is not work you do unless you love it!

The rodeo clown was fun, too.

We went to the Hot Air Balloon Rodeo early Saturday morning. It was really cool to see so many balloons together and up close and personal. They're HUGE!! There's quite a process to inflate one of those balloons and it really takes a whole crew. There were two hand painted balloons there and there are only about 4 in the world.

There were a couple guys flying balloons without baskets - they just had these chair things they sat in. I think they're pretty much crazy.

Loved seeing them fill up the sky!

We rode the gondola up to the ski area. Pretty up there but I'm not sure we'd pay for a gondola ride again.

And we walked around town - look who I ran into! Abe Lincoln and Ben Franklin and Dave found Mark Twain.

If you go to Steamboat you should eat at Winona's. Dave had pretty much the same reaction that Tiernan had to their cinnamon rolls.  (Thanks for the tip Hanlins!)










The last day we went and relaxed at Pearl Lake for a bit before we drove home.

It was a lovely trip. The town itself wasn't our favorite mountain town but we really enjoyed going to the rodeo and the balloon rodeo and it's just beautiful up there. I kept telling Dave that they need accountants in Steamboat too so we should probably move there. He didn't really buy it though... ;)

Manitou Take Two

We enjoy Manitou Springs so we decided to go back for another visit on the Fourth of July.  There's lots to do down there so we thought we'd hit up a few places we missed last time.

We started the day at Uncle Sam's Pancake House which, as you can see, was a perfect fit for the holiday:

Then we went to see the Manitou Cliff Dwellings. They're sort of a mini Mesa Verde. But I liked them whereas I don't love Mesa Verde.  I'm just contrary like that.  And if I'm honest, I can cross both of them off my list and don't need to go back. ;)

This is the Century Plant - it only blossoms once in a blue moon and we happened upon it at just the right time.  I want to know who figured out how long it was in between blossoms?

I was surprised how cool it was inside the dwellings! Those rocks kept the heat out fairly well. I bet they kept it warm inside for them in the winter too.

The view sure was pretty from there!

Then we went to the Miramont Castle Museum which is a pretty eclectic building and has had all sorts of uses over the years.

It also houses a fire museum inside. Dave really liked the helmet!

I liked it less...

And he was very ponderous as we went through the museum...

They had a little garden outside that we wandered through...  It was ok. It has a lot of potential but I'm sure they don't have the budget or manpower to really make it as pretty as it could be.

And this is the real reason we went back to Manitou - so that Dave could get some MATE (pronounced mah-tay)!  Mate is a drink that everyone loves in Argentina and he yearns for it every now and then. Unfortunately this wasn't the same type of mate he was used to so he was a little bit disappointed.

This is one of the many springs you can find in Manitou - but can you find Dave?

We really like Manitou so I'm sure we'll be back again! And there's still plenty that we haven't explored down there. 

Turkey Time!

Last night we cooked up 20 pounds of ground turkey! We did a group purchase of ground turkey from Zaycon and I told Nick that I would cook his meat up for him so he could freeze it. One of these days I'm confident that we'll learn to NOT start these projects so late! We didn't start until sometime after 8pm and didn't finish until 11 or so.

We browned half of it - this is 5 pounds spread out to cool before we bagged it up to freeze:

And we made the other half into taco meat:

The biggest problem is what to do with all that grease! Seriously. How do you get rid of that? We decided to let it cool completely and then put it in a double freezer ziplock bag, freeze until trash day and then throw it away. Hope that works.

As always, my favorite part is seeing the results at the end! Lots of small portions of turkey ready to freeze and use for dinner:

We realized that we should have done the taco meat first because the meat with sauce takes a lot longer to cool down before you can bag it up. The regular browned turkey cooled really fast. We got about 10 cups of the browned turkey from 5 lbs of meat and 9 cups of taco meat from 5 lbs of meat. 

And the house smells like tacos this morning! Time to open up the windows...

Shiny Rocks

I was looking for ideas for a "spring break Staycation" post for work so we invited the Hanlins to spend the night and go adventuring with us at the beginning of March. On Friday night we had an impromptu party when Nick stopped by and then Justin joined us. That was fun! We had dinner then played games. Mia went to bed and I stayed downstairs with her so she wouldn't be scared. The boys were all 100% fine with that because Dave let them stay up way late. Like midnight late or something crazy like that. They loved it. 

And since they were all up so late I let them sleep in so they wouldn't be grumpy! We had German pancakes for breakfast and check out the size of them! We all decided we've never seen them grow quite to big.

Our first stop of the day was a visit to the Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum. They give you a scavenger hunt when you arrive which was a good way to start but it wasn't too long before the kids lost interest in the scavenger hunt because they were just excited to see all the cool gems and minerals there.

 This was Mia's favorite - a crown made of local gems!

 

All of the items in this case were carved from minerals!

They have a cool exhibit downstairs called Blaster's Uranium Mine where you can learn about mining...

...and see fluorescent minerals. Those were very cool!

We even got to see a fossilized dinosaur bone.

This marble is the Colorado state stone:

And this was just a cool green rock. (Probably should have written down what it was...)

When we got back to the car I asked the kids if they thought they'd have fun when I first told them where we were going - they all said NO! Well, did they have fun?  YES! They all loved it! And we were all amazed at the gorgeous things and colors this earth creates!!

Next we planned to go have a picnic and hike around at Golden Gate Canyon State Park. About that. It was early March and even though it was ridiculously nice down in Littleton (thus the shorts) it was still snowy and cold up the hill. If you look in the background behind the kids you can see the picnic table...

So, we had our picnic in the car. (About a week later I went to put something int he back seat of my car and thought "why are there potato chip crumbs back here!?"  Oh yeah! Picnic...)

Just a little snow...

I never did write up that post for work because my plan didn't work out quite as I had hoped. However, we did have a super fun time with the Hanlin kiddos! And really that was the point. 

Where will our next adventure be? Hmmm...