Last week was my spring break! I was home from Friday to Wednesday. On Wednesday afternoon, my family left for Colorado for a short vacation. This was us four kids first time visiting Colorado, and the mountains.
From our house, our destination was about 14 hours of driving time. We had hotel reservations in Kearney, Nebraska the first night, so we had to make it that far. We did take one wrong turn, so the drive took longer than expected. But, that made it more of an adventure.
We saw a lot of flat, brown at this time of year, farm land. And, lots and lots of cows.
And then... we had our first sight of the mountains in the distance!
Before we headed into the mountains, we stopped to look around Boulder, Colorado in the foot hills.
John and Sarah couldn't wait to do some hiking. But, since it was March, it was a bit too wet and muddy to do much hiking.
We stayed Thursday and Friday night up in the mountains at Snow Mountain YMCA Ranch in Granby, which is about 20 minutes from Winter Park, Colorado.
We didn't arrive to the Winter Park area until close to supper time. Before we checked into our lodge at the ranch, we got some supper.
I woke up real early Friday morning - I wanted to see the sun rise. I really didn't know what time it was, because we were all off from the time change, but I think it might have been around 6:30 when I started watching the sun rise.
The picture above is from when I first started waiting for the sun to come up. I could tell which part of the sky the sun would coming from because it was a lot brighter than the rest.
The sun was taking a LONG time to come over the mountains.
And then... BAM!!! It was all there, all at once, and SO BRIGHT!
I was expecting a slow, colorful sun rise. But, nope! That is not what happened.
After we all got ready for the day, we headed over to the ski rental place, right on the ranch, to get some skies. We got fitted and then loaded our van and headed to Winter Park Ski Resort.
It was a sunny, warm, beautiful day for skiing. It was about 50 degrees - it felt like summer but with snow on the ground. With the sun beating down on us, it felt even warmer.
The first hill we went down was a bit too difficult for some of us. We managed to get down, but then we found some easier ones.
We ate lunch at the Lunch Rock Cafe up on the mountain. Of course, the food was way overpriced. But, they gave you huge portions - so if you were to split a meal, the price probably wouldn't be so bad. And, I thought everything looked delicious! We just got a few of their pizzas to share and some fries... it were really good!
After skiing, which the lifts close at 4 o'clock, we headed back to the ranch for a little while.
Then we went back into Winter Park for supper. We ate at Smokehouse BBQ.
Saturday, just my dad and Thomas went skiing. John and Sarah wanted to do some activities at the ranch. My mom and I dropped Dad and Thomas off to ski and picked up a treat for breakfast at the Rise & Shine Cafe.
John and Sarah spent a lot of time with the horses... which included feeding them apples.
Look at that horses hair!
I ended up going horseback riding with John and Sarah on Saturday. It was just trail riding around the ranch, where one horse follows another... but, it was a very interesting ride.
First off, my horse Jane was a very noisy horse. As in.. she was gassy. She also made noises with her mouth - sometimes she sounded like a bear! The guides did warn me about her.
Then, we were riding in riding the horses in the snow. I haven't ever rode a horse through the snow before. But, sometimes they would lose their footing. There are just fine walking through the snow, but for someone who doesn't ride much, it can be a bit startling.
Finally, the most crazy part.
In the group there was a guide, 2 other riders, Sarah, John, me, and then another guide. Towards the end of the ride, we were going up a ditch onto a road. The ditch was covered in deeper snow though. The first 3 riders made it up fine. But, Sarah's horse didn't make it up the ditch. It slipped. Sarah jumped/flung off the horse the one side. The horse, as it was trying to get up the ditch again, fell. It fell onto it's side. But, it couldn't get up. One of it's hooves was stuck in the reins. The guide fixed it, but the horse just couldn't get up. Poor horse!
John's horse was next to get up the ditch. The horse didn't fall, but John ended up off his horse somehow.
By then, I was a bit scared to ride my horse up the snowy ditch. I stayed on my horse. It was a struggle to get up the incline. My horse had to take some small jumps and really push itself up. We finally made.
The guides called the stable to bring Sarah a different horse. Sarah's first horse eventually got up. Everyone was fine. But, wow! It was quite the experience trail riding.
After horseback riding, John and Sarah did some more activities at the Y. Then we went to pick my dad and Thomas up in Winter Park at head on the road.
We didn't start driving in the direction of home though. Dad wanted to show us some areas deeper west into the mountains.
We drove through a long tunnel crossing the Continental Divide.
We drove way up high in the mountains. I have always thought being on those curvy mountain roads, where one side is a drop off, would be really scary to drive on. Until this part of our trip, there hadn't been any really scary roads. The twisting mountain roads with a drop off on one side are REALLY SCARYY!
There was some pretty scenery though.
We went 11,990 feet up! I definitely could feel the elevation getting to me. I felt a little light headed.
After our sight seeing trip, we started to head back in the direction of home. We left the mountain range just as the sun was going down.
We stayed Saturday night in a hotel that we found on the road. There were hardly any places with rooms. Finally we found a hotel with a room that we thought would work for us. We were like 5 minutes away. We got there and found out that the room they thought would work for us was a smoking room. (Our family as a particular set up that works for us that we always get. This night, we weren't getting our usual.) So, they gave us another room. It was way too small. So, we checked out that smoking room. We didn't like the smell. The front dest lady gave us a third room. When my dad went to open the door, the security latch was closed... someone was in the room. Finally, the lady got us a room that worked for us. It wasn't perfect, but we were there for such little time.
This hotel had a big indoor-like courtyard that all the room opened up to. So, the entire time we were pushing our cart of bags and carrying our bags around... late at night.
I was dropped off back at college on Sunday on my family's way home.
