Thursday, a travel day. Oct 20, 2022

 We left Katie's house this morning close to ten a.m. Durango is almost 7 hours from Castle Rock, and we chose the winding, scenic, mountainous route. It did not disappoint! Gorgeous fall color still blazing, rivers, lakes and ponds, minimal wildlife, a good lunch partway there, decent roads most of the way. No freeways, but we knew that. 

We went through Colorado Springs on freeway and it ended there. Through construction ( and a chipped windshield!!!!!!) to Canon City. Then we took a little detour to the Royal Gorge. Pretty amazing, but we didn't spend the money to stay and see. Seeing the lobby preview film was plenty scary for me. A gondola ride over a very deep gorge. The bridge is a very early, very tall suspension bridge. We are puzzled as to WHY they would have put it there . . . Practice? It went nowhere that we could tell. 

The Arkansas river was GORGEOUS, and we followed it through canyons, valleys, farmlands. . . Then we climbed hugely steep mountains. We also followed the Rio Grande River. AND the San Juan River. They are all gorgeous. We are jealous of the amount of water in Colorado. Utah is so dry in the southern part of the state. We saw a lot of Colorado we've never seen before. Pagosa Springs. Salida, where we had lunch in a little cafe because McDonalds was so crowded. We drove past Wolf Creek ski area. Just lots of cool stuff to see in this wonderful country of ours.

We arrived in Durango around 5:30 or 6 and we're so confused about how to find our hotel...such weird directions on my phone GPS and we circled the block to look again....and then I realized that I'd just programmed our GPS directions to get us to Durango. Not the hotel. Just Durango . So there we were-- right smack dab in the very CENTER of Durango. Our hotel was down the road a ways. Haha. We Made it.  Days Inn by Wyndham. I think Wyndham owns about everything. 

The colors of leaves were always so breathtaking. My phone can't do it justice, so we just smiled our way down the road. Really. The beauty of this earth just makes us smile.

Some photos for your enjoyment.

Circled in yellow is the gondola traversing a huge, deep, rocky gorge.

There's a large nice visitor center for "Royal Gorge Bridge" and activities. Zip lines, Gondola, a huge swing out over the gorge, films, rock climbing. And a gift shop, of course. 

A locomotive sits perched on the rim.

Even walking down the parking area to an overlook, one can not see the bottom. It's water and rocks I'm guessing. I've seen that before.

A suspension bridge. . . To. . . Nowhere? I guess I should have picked up a pamphlet or something while there. It will be something to Google later. And look up on an atlas or something.

Someone is on the swing (circled in red) ready to be swung out over the 1000 foot deep gorge. Crazy.

The little pointy white things is building tops across the gorge. The other "activities". One could walk across the bridge. For a fee. No thank you.

Lots of granite with sparkly mica. It was pretty. The Rocky Mountains are really ROCKY. Just overlooking Royal Gorge. We did pass over the Arkansas river, further down the road and with NO altitude. Easy peasy. Ha 

The Arkansas River.

Going through mountains. Lots of mountains. I think this was after the Wolf Creek Ski area, down near the bottom of that section. Very steep. Mike's truck has 10 speeds. He was going downhill in speed 3, I think, to go slowly and safely enough around hairpin curves on steep roads.

Entering Durango toward the end of the day, this glowing cottonwood peeked over the rooftops and greeted us at the end of the street. So pretty.

We ended up eating dinner at a place called "Serious Texas Barbeque." It was VERY much like places Damian and Tandy have taken us in Texas. Yummy.  We brought our leftovers home and have enough for either breakfast or lunch tomorrow. This hotel does have a free continental breakfast, so we'll see what it is. And if we have time because we need to have an early start to get where we need to be for our Mesa Verde Tours at 9:30 a.m. and at 2:00 p.m.

Wednesday. Oct 19 at Katie's

 We slept in, we ate, we played. We crafted, we watched a movie...cooked food, played at a park.

Here is Quintin with some of the spiders we made.

Back when I was a kid, these were the ONLY kind of Halloween decorations we ever had! So the twins and I made paper pumpkins and taped them to the window. 

Katie had some other, fancier crafts we worked on while she grilled up some yummy grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner tonight.

Isn't this a cute little garland?

Wednesday p.m. Katie's off to work. Night shifts are tough.

After lunch, Katie switched out some of her kitchen cabinet hinges to the "self-closing" kind. 

But she did have about 6 hours of un-interrupted sleep when she came home this morning. Since it's Fall Break, kids are sleeping in and playing on their devices. 

Last night (Tuesday) Casey turned OFF their connections so Hayden and Corbin would come and watch a movie with us. I'd been wanting to see "Dog." It wasn't as good as I thought it would be and poor Mike was unable to hear ANY of it. 

Wednesday afternoon, the kids watched "Light-year." Corbin said, "We are best friends,".  Wellll, maybe for a minute. Haha.

At lunch today, Katie had Doritos. With a spoon. Because her kids won't eat the crumbs. Of ANY chips!

The little kids and I went to a nearby playground. It was really nice! It is across a busy highway, so kids would not be able to go on their own. I drove the twins there.

 Corbin declined the invite. I couldn't find Hayden in his mountain of blankets on his bed. It's an elephant-sized NEST that he regularly sleeps in.

 

This is how Mike and the twins spent a quiet morning together on Wednesday. I got showered and cleaned up. We head out tomorrow to our next stop-- Mesa Verde! 

In the late afternoon, we made some caramel apples. Not everyone liked them. All the more for me and Katie!

Tuesday at Katie's

 Well, the parents had to head off to work ( or sleep for Katie who works from 10 pm to 6 am, then to the gym, then home).

Mostly the older boys stayed in their rooms, either sleeping or playing online games with friends.

The twins drew, played on tablets, BUT, we also baked cookies and I went with them on a jeep ride. It was such a lovely day. Unseasonably warm, I think. 

Mike made his famous lemonade slushie from our Hawaii days. He made and ate these every Sunday night for years and loved it. (ME, not so much)

And kids had fun decorating the sugar cookies we made earlier. I enjoyed eating their creations.

:-D

Monday, Nick's Garden Center, Aurora

 Today, Casey took the day off work and we all went to a fun garden center in Aurora with fun Fall and Halloween activities. We were supposed to go to a pumpkin patch nearby, but found out it was closed today. Bummer. But this was really fun, even though farther away. Lots of free activities and a coule of pay as you go ones. Fun times. Bounce house obstacle course, ring toss, bean bag toss, baseball throw, hammer whack a frog into a cauldron, a big tall hay bale maze, play areas with cars and big tires, a train ride, and a wagon ride through a haunted tunnel. So cute. It's at a nursery/greenhouse with a year round farmers and fresh foods ( and lots of other stuff) market. Plus plants and trees , of course. There were venders of fresh produce, too.  I was fascinated by watching them roast green chili peppers in a big black rotating iron mesh drum. You could smell it. Mike bought some kettle corn. Katie's always so good to bring snacks for kids and everyone. And we had water. We stayed a couple or three hours? Afterwards, it was close to two and we went to their favorite Mexican restaurant close to their old home. The lady knew Casey by name. And had missed them! It was good food. Four kids sat at one table; four adults at the other. And there weren't squabbles. ( I'm thinking they were hungry). Haha

Fun day. Corbin's good friend was home, right there by where we were eating,  so Mike and I drove the twins back to Castle Rock and the rest stayed to visit in the old neighborhood for a bit.

I was going to make my eggplant parmesan for dinner tonight ( because I hauled all my eggplants from my garden here!), But we are all going to be too full from such a big lunch eaten so late.  As I type this, I've had a nap, it's after 6pm and the parents and older boys aren't home yet. I'm guessing they ran into rush hour traffic. We missed it. 

Denver is so huge and populated!. Big cities are so ...big! Takes forever to get anywhere.

Katie goes back to work tonight, Casey goes back tomorrow morning, and it'll be us and the kids all day long:-).

Bean bag toss

Franken-Mike

Waiting for the pumpkin story time to end.

Mr Jack-O-Lanturn telling a long ol' scarey story. He ended with some silly jokes and rhymes. There were fun facts all over, about pumpkins, etc. And so many varieties of pumpkins and gourds. It was so cute and well- decorated.

Katie taking photos of the bean bag toss participants. Quintin wasn't successful here, so he started meltdown; Hailey had hers later over snacks and photos. Despite the drama, it was still fun and manageable and in the end , most folks were pleased. They were here some years ago and had fun then, too.

A bath tub in which to scrub ones purchased pumpkin. Haha.

Hit the hammer on the lever and catapult your frog into a black cauldron.

Hailey as a bat.

Katie as a bat. "Gone too soon"

The cute train that circled the property ( in 3 minutes or less) . Toot, toot!!

This ( below) is on the tractor-pulled wagon ride that went through a haunted tunnel. I think it was their greenhouse. But we went all around their 5 acres of trees, shrubs, equipment, etc.

Sunday Night with Gardner's

 Katie and Casey were so nice-- they invited Mike's sister, Gayela, and her son Troy, his wife Ecatacia and their daughter MJ over for dinner Sunday evening. They live in Aurora. The Gardner's haven't seen Katie's new home yet, and now was a good time to see it. They have done so much more since the last time we were here in March. More window treatments, rugs, accent furniture. So nice. Plus Halloween/fall decor that's cute. And I heard the twins sweeping ( electric broom/ sweeper) and mopping before people came over, and Katie was cleaning and straightening non- stop since we got here! 

Casey grilled some beef patties and some hotdogs, Troy's family brought chips, dips and veggies. We all had nice visits. Even Caillou the dog had some extra snuggles from Troy and MJ. He's such a cold-blooded dog. Chihuahua's usually are. Mike's kind and tolerates him. I just tell him to "keep on going" when he wants to sit on my lap. 

I totally forgot to take any pictures of visiting family. It should be noted, guests never saw Hayden OR Corbin, who stayed in their rooms the entire time.