Lovely FOCO

Yes, this vacation included grand day trips with water slide roller coasters, National Parks, rodeo shows, and insane wildlife encounters, but there were plenty of awesome things that we enjoyed close to home too!  Heather and Andrew's new hometown is pretty great.  We loved just getting to know Fort Collins on this trip.

On the night we arrived, we took their dogs out for a walk to a nearby park.  Totally serious, this is their regular view of the sun setting.  From their dog walking route!!

They also have a nearby lake called Horsetooth Reservoir that they regularly kayak on.  We had plans to do this also, but a storm was rolling in, so decided to just go for a swim instead.  Pretty scenic place to swim!

After church on Sunday, we walked around their downtown-- Old Town.  This town is so picturesque and lovely, it was actually the inspiration for Disneyland's Main Street USA!  We had a wonderful lunch at a pub here, then sampled some of the unique food shops at "The Exchange", an outdoor venue full of lawn games and live music.

Ice cream at The Churn was incredible.

Another day, Auntie Heather enlisted the help of her nieces to decorate the bedroom that would be theirs for visits.  A Colorado theme was decided on, featuring pictures of wildlife and mountains that Heather has actually taken.  She also got these hilarious moose, elk and ram stuffed animal heads to mount.  All this meant another trip to Old Town for some Colorado goods shopping, and another opportunity to sample a local delicacy-- freshly fried donuts at FOCO DOCO (Fort Collins Donut Company).  Delia was a fan.

One night Andrew and Heather took us to their local drive-in movie theater-- a place they themselves had not tried yet.  This was so cool!  Super fun to make the back of the car cozy with blankets and pillows, load up on snacks from the concession stand, wait for dark by playing games, then sing along to The Lion King from the comfort of our own car!  What made it extra exciting, was watching lightning flash behind the screen as a storm rolled in!

It makes my heart happy to know my sister has such a fantastic place to call home.  And I selfishly celebrate that she's so much closer now, with a visit that provides us with such a great vacation destination!

Mission: Moose Sighting

So hard to pick a favorite day, but this one might have been mine.  One famous, but elusive, wild animal in Colorado is the majestic moose.  Heather and Andrew have spotted them on hikes a few times in their short time living here, so expectations were high that we'd see one too.  To help ensure we added moose to our CO/WY wildlife list, Heather took us waaaay up to over 10,000 feet in Cameron Pass where 600 wild moose are known to live.

The drive alone was totally beautiful!  It was through a rocky canyon and hugged a river full of white water rapids most of the way.  If we hadn't found moose, just the drive would have been worth it!

Our happy chauffeur!

Moose are so known and loved in this area, there is a whole visitor center dedicated to them!  We enjoyed learning all about the mighty moose and reading the board for where they had been sighted that very day.

So thus, after an informative stop at the moose visitor center, our Moose Tracking Mission commenced!  Check out Dave, the moose hunter! It was actually Delia who spotted the first ones off the side of the road as we were driving to the reservoir where others said they saw them!

We pulled over and watched these two bulls munching for a good long time from a safe distance.

It seemed they were moving in a certain direction, which was confirmed by others we spoke with.  A group of four bulls was steadily making their way to the pass.  So, we made our way there too.  We sighted them one more time, running.  We stopped and ate lunch, then cautiously hopped on a hiking path that we felt pretty certain would intersect them if they continued traveling in the direction they were.

Success!  Shocking success, actually!  Out from the woods and right onto our hiking path popped a different moose!  He was SO close that when he turned our direction and headed right for us, we actually had to run a bit and follow the guidelines we had learned at the visitor center to put a tree between us and the moose!!  We kept teasing Delia that on this day her hiking caused her to be CHASED BY A MOOSE!

We know we saw moose three different times on this day trip and we believe we saw three different ones.  Let us know if you need guides for your next moose finding expedition!  Auntie Heather's Colorado Wildlife Safari Tours are definitely 5 star! ;)

We didn't just find moose on this day in the mountains, we found some pretty spectacular scenery too.  Places where the road opened up to show the mountain range were breathtaking, as were the fields of wildflowers and alpine lakes!

Cheyenne Frontier Days

On our third day of vacation, we switched gears a bit and got our cowboy on.  We crossed the state border to Wyoming for "The Big Daddy of 'Em All" Cheyenne Frontier Days.  This is a major stop on the PBR circuit and hub for all things country music, rodeo, and Wild West.  It was a really neat thing to see!

Uncle Andrew actually used to ride bucking broncos competitively in his late teens/early 20's, so he could answer our million questions about this strange-to-us sport and culture.

We went on the Frontier Days Opening Day, so the rodeo had not officially started yet.  It all opened with a big Wild West show, which gave us a lot of history of rodeo and just a taste of each event.  It also included lots of impressive horse stunts and races.

Since Ella spent a good portion of this school year recreating a Wild West Show with her Annie Get Your Gun cast mates, we thought she'd especially enjoy seeing the real thing!  Besides the show, Frontier Days also featured an Indian Village with legit native performers, a ride carnival, a recreation of cowboy camps, a delicious BBQ lunch straight off the chuck-wagon, and tons of vendors selling Wyoming essentials-- like buffalo skin jackets, all items of clothing with fringe, or home decor made of horse shoes? ;)

As we drove back into Colorado, we loved viewing more wildlife on the way-- antelope and buffalo!

This vacation allowed the girls to color in two new states on their map.  Heather and I tallied it up and my kids have literally been in twice as many states as my sister and I were at their ages.  And most of their states are ones we didn't see till adulthood!  Lucky kids!

RMNP

Our second day in Colorado had us at our third National Park this summer!  Rocky Mountain National Park was gorgeous and another amazing landscape and set of wildlife completely different than what we saw at Joshua Tree or Yosemite!

This park actually sprawls over a good part of the state.  Figuring it out on our own would have been intimidating, but Heather has been researching!  The hike she picked for us was at at little over 9000 feet.  It was 5 miles long and offered views of 3 different waterfalls while we hiked right along a rushing river. (Pictured above the flow coming off the first waterfall-- Copeland Falls.)

Not only did the hike afford views of waterfalls and the sound of raging rapids, sometimes so loud it swallowed up our trail conversation, it also had a ton of beautiful wildflowers.  Here is the columbine, Colorado's state flower.

Calypso Cascades was probably my favorite falls of the hike!

You know hiking is not Delia's first choice of vacation activity.  She was not without complaint, but still completed the hike with us and we were proud!

The third and final waterfall, Ouzel Falls, was the most grand and dramatic of the three.  We sat here and enjoyed the mist a good while before making the 2.7 mile return.

On our way down from the mountains we stopped in the picturesque town of Estes Park for some ice cream...and wildlife sighting!  We found a couple elk swimming in a pond!

Then we found these cool bighorn sheep hanging out on the side of the road!  They looked like a family, complete with Big Daddy Horns, nursing mama, and a few little babies.

They hide well!  Can you see them? ;)

It was another remarkable and memorable day in God's glorious creation!  Thank you, Lord, for wildflowers, waterfalls, rushing rivers, elk, bighorn sheep, able bodies, strong minds, and the National Park system!