2012 Vacation Day Seven: Accomplishing Goals

Despite being small our hotel room was very cozy.  We all, and I mean ALL, slept until 8:00 am.  (Derrick had woken up in the middle of the night of course, but he still slept in until 8:00.)  Once we were awake and dressed it was time for the usual routine of Brandon organizing the jeep and me taking care of all the inside stuff.  The girls entertained themselves by un-rolling all the toilet paper and putting it in the tub.

Once that was done they helped me wash out bottles and put powdered milk into each one.  I'd forgot to bring any dish soap for the bottles so I used baby shampoo instead.  It seemed to work okay.

 Our hotel didn't have a continental breakfast so we decided to try our luck finding a Burger King or something and getting breakfast there.  Apparently the entire town of Golden doesn't believe in fast food because we couldn't find anywhere that served breakfast.  But we got a nice tour of the town in the process.  

 We gave up and headed up the canyon on I-70.  This was one of the few times that I wished I had a smart phone.  It would have been really nice to ask it where the nearest fast food place was.  But moments like these are what make road trips fun so I just sat back and enjoyed the ride.  We finally did see a McDonalds.  But by this point we'd already made up our minds to just have an early lunch on the side of the road.  (It was getting close to 11:00 by this point.) I ate trail mix to stay happy and the girls just fell asleep.

 We finally found a good place to pull over and Brandon got out the fruit cups.  We bring these along so we don't have to worry about keeping fruit fresh.  Charlotte loved the peaches.

 She also loved her jelly sandwich.

I nursed Derrick and Lydia slept.  Eventually Lydia woke up and had peaches too.  

Then we kept driving.  Of course we passed a picnic place 2 seconds later.  Oh well, like I said, it's moments like these that make a road trip fun.  

Soon we came to the toll booth for our goal for the day, Mt Evans.  Several years ago I read a book called Halfway to Heaven by Mark Obmascik.  The author wrote all about his goal to climb all of Colorado's 14,000 feet high mountains in one year.  Ever since I read that book I've wanted to stand on top of a mountain.  Because - huge confession here- I've never actually made it to the top of a mountain.  Yeah I did Angel's landing (while pregnant with twins) but that wasn't really a mountain.  

So when I was planning our trip to Colorado I wanted to drive to the top of Pikes Peak.  (Hiking to the top of a mountain is out of the picture as a family activity for a few years.)   Pike's Peak was on the agenda up until a few weeks before the trip.  That's when I read about Audrey and Noel's attempt to take their baby up Pike's Peak.  They were turned away at the toll booth because their baby was too young, and her lungs would collapse in the thin air. (Which was just paranoia because they'd taken their baby that high before and she was just fine)  

I wasn't worried about Derrick's lungs collapsing, but I was curious about how old Derrick needed to be before they would let us drive Pike's Peak.  I asked Audrey and Noel.  Noel e-mailed me back and told me about Mt Evans which had two advantages over Pike's Peak.  1. It was cheaper (only $10) and 2. was actually higher by about 100 feet.  So Mt Evan's bumped Pike's Peak off of the agenda.    

We paid the $10 and were waved through the toll booth without anyone giving Derrick a second glance.  We started driving on the highest paved road in North America.  Check out this video of us driving.  You can barely hear Lydia giving a baby talk running commentary.  

  The view was amazing.  Even with the ever-present smoke.  

Brandon did a great job driving.  Even as we drove higher and higher.  Check out the mountain peaks out his window.   

 We passed a lake way above the tree line.

 The road turned into a lot of switch backs as we got closer to the top.

 It was almost like we were driving right into the sky.  We started to get a little light headed.  Brandon said that he felt sleepy.  I had a little head ache.  By the end our throats were a little sore from the thin air.

 And then we rounded one of the switch backs and we were at a parking lot.  We put the girls in the stroller and went to look around.   

 There was a little observation area.  We could see for miles and miles.     

 We weren't quite at the summit yet.  There was a trail up to the very top, but it was really rocky and so it wasn't stroller accessible.  I stayed with the girls and Brandon ran up to the top with Derrick.

 Here is the view of the parking lot from the top.

 And this is what the top looked like.

 Derrick was higher than any mountain in Utah and he was fast asleep.  Everyone commented on how cute he was.

 This is the view of that mountain lake from the very top

 According to the US Geological Survey, Mt Evans is 14,258 feet above sea level.

 And here I am standing above that marker.  Brandon watched the kids while I hiked up to the top. I finally was able to stand on top of a mountain.  I can cross that off my bucket list.  Now I can put hiking to the top of a mountain onto my list of cool things to do.

 Then came the scary ride down the mountain.    It even started to sprinkle a little bit.  

 But we made it off the mountain before the downpour hit.   

 The girls fell asleep again. Lydia fell asleep while playing with her toes.

 And Charlotte zonked out with Derrick's blanket.

 They woke up when we stopped to get gas.

 It was still raining so we didn't let them get out and run around.  We just started driving to Colorado Springs where we would meet up with Emily and David again.  

 It had taken us several hours to do the mountain and then it took about an hour and a half to drive to Colorado Springs.  All the kids were going nuts from being in the car for so long.  Once we got to Colorado Springs we stopped at the first grocery store we saw.  I stayed in the car and nursed Derrick, while Brandon took the girls inside and picked up some fresh food.  We've learned that it's always a good idea to have a mid-road trip shopping trip.  

 Then it was back into the car for the last little bit of driving for the day. Here is Charlotte showing off her driving companions - Baby and Bear.  She said "Bear" so perfectly every time I handed him to her.  Bear was once Brandon's Christmas present and he is so happy that Charlotte adopted him.

 We could see Pike's Peak off in the distance.  It was crazy to think we had been higher than that only a few hours ago.

Derrick was handling the drive really well, but I could tell he wanted to be done.  

 So we hurried and found our next stop - The Goldfield RV Park in Colorado Springs.  I'd picked this place because it was close to everything we wanted to do in Colorado Springs.  The pictures also reminded me of my favorite campground in Moab. But the pictures ended up being a little misleading.  The pictures showed lots of shade trees, but none of those trees were actually over the tent area.  The tent area was next to the highway and so it was noisy and hot.  But I'd only had to pay $17.50 a night so I wasn't going to complain.   

 Emily and David showed up right when we did.  They helped us set up the tent and make dinner.  We had taco salad for dinner.

 It was so nice to have fresh food.

 Another reason I picked this place was because it had laundry facilities.  I was able to do two much needed loads of laundry.  The kids still had lots of wiggles left in them from the long drive so while the laundry dried we took them all to a nearby park.   

 David and Brandon went back to camp to start making ice cream in a ice cream maker that Emily borrowed from her in-laws.  They also went to Walmart so Brandon could buy something to fix my leaky water back pack.  Both their phones were dead so me and Emily thought we had been abandoned.  It was getting dark and the kids were ready to go to bed.  Finally Emily put her two kids in my double stroller and walked back to camp while I followed her with all my kids in the jeep.  I felt like a creepy stalker.  

We all got home safely.  The men came back and apologized for leaving us.  Then we put the kids to bed.  (Sorry it's impossible to get a picture with all 5 kids sleeping)

 Us adults stayed up eating ice cream and talking.  I took a shower to cool off and then Emily braided my hair.  We talked about how much fun it was to camp together.  We went camping a lot as kids and its fun that we can continue the tradition with our kids.  We started planning an overnight camping trip for all our siblings in September when our brother Billy gets home from his mission.  Soon it was time for us to go to bed too.