Mountain Time: Glenwood Springs

Thursday, June 19th, we spent the morning packing and then joined up with The Bayon family to spend the weekend in Glenwood Springs.  A small mountain town about 4 hours west of Longmont on I-70.  They are famous for their natural hot spring pools.  Spoiler:  it was an amazing weekend!!

After unwinding from the long drive in the hotel pool Thursday evening, the next morning we got going early and hoofed it up one of Colorado's most popular hikes:  Hanging Lake.  Dead Horse Creek flows down and deposits a small lake just a short way from the peak before tumbling down the rest of the mountain in bursts of gargling falls and tiny rapids.  Not only are the water falls here a sight to behold, but minerals in this water make the lake a bright turquoise blue.  About 1.2 miles of very steep trail proved to be absolutely worth it!  Josh and I were very proud of all the boys, but Wes especially.  He did almost 3/4 of the hike himself, leading the pack no less!  We came down dusty and tired, but at the same time exhilarated from the experience.  The sign of a great hike.

Trail head at 6,387' and peaks out at 7,323'

After a nice siesta, and showers, after the hike we rode the gondolas up to Glenwood Adventure Park.  This is a small, old west themed amusement park at the very top of the mountains above the town.  Van kept mispronouncing the gondolas, and called them "gonda-lopes"  It stuck, and they were "gonda-lopes" all weekend.  We toured one of the two large caverns up there and rode the highly anticipated Alpine Coaster.  Fun!!  Alas, it was getting late and we didn't have time for much else, but all the boys were all smiles from the days adventures.

The Colorado Rive flows through the valley.

Saturday was the local Strawberry Days festival.  The lot of us took the bus to town (which was not only fun for the boys but smart for everyone - parking was crazy!).  We caught most of the parade and then got some lunch from the vendors - turkey legs and lots of meat-on-sticks, good fair food!  Walking around to see all the vendors and play with their wares took up most of the afternoon, but after a while it was time to depart.  After another afternoon siesta it was finally time to check out the hot springs!  There were two pools:  one large warm pool and one smaller hot pool.  Josh and the boys enjoyed both.  Momma discovered she's allergic to sulfur dioxide and hung out in our chairs.  No biggie - I was happy to watch Ahir, Van, Wes and Josh have a splashing good time.  

Sunday it was time to head back down to Longmont.  Before leaving town we took one last little hike up to see John Henry "Doc" Holliday's grave.  Had to give Ahir a short history lesson as to who he was.  It was a really cool old, old cemetery, and worth a little more dust on our feet.

Finally, it was time for Ahir to go back to California.  He said he was sad to go, but looking forward to being home.  I couldn't ask for a better sentiment from him after 11 days with us.  Hopefully he'll be back to see us again, and maybe bring his folks!