Colorado!

Rocky Mountain sunset, snapped from my cousin's car, near Denver.

I'd never been to Colorado before, but last year during the great lazy lake vacation in Michigan, my mom called her sister, who moved to Colorado a couple of years ago after my uncle passed away. I got to talk to my aunt for a bit, and during the conversation she mentioned that she would really enjoy it if TQ and I might venture out that way for a visit sometime.

We couldn't do it right away because our Fall trip ended up being that great Erie Canal excursion on our nameless Nimble Nomad, but when TQ started being asked about spring vacation plans earlier this year (in the NYC Parks Department they like people to have their vacations planned pretty far in advance), I floated the idea of a Colorado trip, and he liked the idea. My aunt and I have birthdays around the same time in May, that happened to be a good time for both TQ and me to take a week off, and that's how I ended up celebrating my 50th birthday in the beautiful Rocky Mountains!

It was an excellent trip, lots of visiting with my aunt, my cousin and his wife who live there (and very kindly put us up at their place), another cousin and her husband who happened to be coming in from Idaho (wonderful timing!), and then cousins once removed and twice removed. We had some great great visiting, there was lots of catching up to do as I hadn't seen some of these folks in years!

TQ and I alternated visiting with the family with some side trips on our own: a hike in the beautiful Chatauqua park just outside of Boulder; a drive further up into Rocky Mountain National Park with a shorter hike around a lake; and a visit to the Denver Museum of Science and Nature, where we went to see a very well-done exhibit on Vikings and also enjoyed their Prehistoric Journey exhibit, followed up with a visit to the Redstone Meadery, because what's better than quaffing mead after learning about Vikings? :)

The Lily Lake hike was actually on my birthday. There was a loop trail with an option to go up a ridge for the extra-scenic version. We opted for the ridge. So here I am, going "over the hill", just like you're supposed to when you hit the big five-oh, right? Heck yeah!

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:D / >
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(kayak smiley, patent pending)

 On Friday morning, we said goodbye to the family and headed south for more sightseeing, stopping in Breckenridge for one night (we saw a moose there! I never saw a wild moose before! I'm not sure I've ever seen a moose in real life at all in fact!); we were originally going to do more hiking there but I was driving and it turned out we were driving right past this great old choo choo train that I'd been investigating as a possible good jaunt earlier in the trip. The next day we continued south to Buena Vista where we finished up our vacation with a couple of days at the great CKS Paddlefest. It was a wonderful visit and of course I have loads of pictures to share!