Move to Utah: Day 6 - We discover winter in Colorado

The kids sort of slept in on Saturday morning.  They slept until 7:00.  When Charlotte woke up she looked out the window and said, "it's still dark! it's not morning yet."  I tried explaining that in Alabama we lived on one edge of the Central Time Zone and so we were used to the sun rising really early.  Now we were on the other edge so the sun didn't rise as soon.  But she didn't really understand that. 

Our motel in Colby, Kansas was one of those places that said they offered a continental breakfast, but really only had cereal and bread.  So rather than go there for breakfast we decided that we should treat ourselves to breakfast at Village Inn.  

Now let me do some backstory for you.  The last time we took the kids to eat anywhere besides a fast food restaurant was back in 2013 when we were on vacation in San Antonio.  We'd gone to Denny's Charlotte and Lydia weren't even 2 1/2 and Derrick wasn't even one yet.  The kids had used up all their "good behavior time" waiting for a table and waiting for our food.  By the time our food arrived they were all completely done with sitting still.  We basically had to put our food into the to go boxes as soon as it arrive. 

We never took our kids to eat anywhere besides a fast food place again.    

So it was with a great deal of trepidation that we considered going to Village Inn.  But we figured that Veronica was now older than Charlotte and Lydia had been during that Denny's run so it might go better this time.  

It actually went really well.  We were able to get a table right away. We were all freezing so Brandon ordered hot chocolate for everyone. That was fun.  We ordered a bunch of french toast for the kids and skillets for us.  The kids behaved really well and ate all their food.  

Kids do grow up.  It really does happen.  

We went back to the car and found something shocking.  I'd spilled a bunch of water by accident on the ground right before we went into the restaurant.  When we came back out an hour later it was FROZEN.  

FROZEN!

This, combined with the little ice shapes that had formed on the car overnight, had me kind of freaking out. I've avoided winter ever since December of 2013 so I was not exactly thrilled about this. In a lot of ways I felt like I was reenacting all scenes from the movie Cool Runnings.  I kept saying, "Winter as in ICE?"

Anyway, my weather misgivings none the less, we got back on the road and continued driving west.  We'd reached I-70 the night before so we were done with our little off the interstate adventures.  When I originally planned this trip I'd assumed we do it at the beginning of September.  During that version of the trip we would take a southern route through Colorado on Highway 160.  However, that plan got cancelled when this trip was moved to November and included a moving truck.  I did not want to take a moving truck up the high elevation passes in the wintertime.

Honestly, we weren't even sure how the moving truck would work going over the passes on the Interstate.

But those mountains were still miles away.  The land was very flat during the first part of the drive.

But gradually we could see the Rocky Mountains in the distance.

We didn't have any special places to visit on this part of the trip. I'd been hoping to visit some special people though.  My Aunt Diane lives near Denver so I talked to her about stopping by for a visit.  I also wanted to see Audrey who is one of my favorite online friends.  But I ended up cancelling both visits on account of the whole travelling-with-a-moving-van-that-was-towing-a-car situation. Just thinking about trying to navigate the moving van through the streets of Denver gave me anxiety.

So we cruised through Denver without stopping and headed into the Rocky Mountains.

The drive wasn't that bad for me.  The roads were clear and dry which was good considering there was snow on the sides of the road.

But Brandon had quite the time going up the steep hills. The moving truck didn't have "guts" as Brandon described it.  He said that it could barely go 35 miles per hour up the hills.  As a result I ended up about 4 hours ahead of Brandon.

Derrick and Veronica thought the tunnels were so much fun.

Our destination for the day was Dillon, Colorado. Years ago Brandon had been to this area and wanted had always wanted to come back with his future family.  We'd stopped here for little bit during our Colorado road trip in 2012, but I thought it would be fun to stay here overnight.

Derrick and Veronica and I arrived in Dillon around 1:00.  We couldn't check into our hotel until 4:00.  I figured we could ask about early check in, but first I wanted to spend some time exploring the town.  

We ended up at a very exotic place called Target. Actually all joking aside, this Target did seem very foreign to me. When we walked in there were aisles and aisles of coats right at the front of the store.  I just kind of stared at all those coats in wonder.  And all the people in the store were dressed like they were in a ski catalog.  They had puffy coats and boots.  I was there in a jacket and my black flats. This was like a whole new culture to me. 

We bought some more fresh food to eat on the rest of our trip.  I also bought more casual clothes for Brandon.  He's been wearing Army uniforms for so long that he doesn't have a lot of casual pants and shirts.  He'd mentioned that he'd probably have to do laundry during part of our trip.  I'd replied that if he didn't have enough clothes to make it to Utah then I'd just buy him new ones.  And that's what I did. 

After finishing up at Target we found a park where the kids could play.  Derrick and Veronica showed off their snow ignorance by taking off their shoes to play on the playground. I at least got smart and dug out my tennis shoes and changed out of my flats.  

We played at the park for a long time.  Veronica made friends with a family with a big lab dog.  That girl loves dogs so much. Derrick ran around and climbed all over everything.

Brandon and the twins finally found us.  Brandon had quite a few crazy stories about his stressful drive up the mountain.  Charlotte and Lydia ran around the park and then decided to play in the snow.  They were so excited to lay in the snow and make snow angels.  Brandon and I tried to warn them, but the girls didn't listen when we explained that they needed coats.  Here is the exact moment when Lydia learned that snow is cold and that cold can hurt.

Brandon left the moving truck parked on the side of the road by the park and we all piled into the Honda and went to our hotel.  Everyone was happy to be warm again.  We spent a lot of time watching the Property Brothers on HGTV.  After a few of the kids fell asleep Brandon went took the Honda back to moving van and then set out to find somewhere that allowed overnight parking for the moving van.  He ended up making a deal with Target.  He could park overnight in their side parking lot as long as it was gone by the time the store opened at 8:00 the next morning.  When I found that out I was pretty happy that I'd decided to spend so much money at that particular store. 

This was probably the first night since we'd started driving that I stayed up later than all four of the kids. Brandon made it back and we were able to actually have a conversation together without kids listening in.  

Even with steep roads and cold weather we were both very happy to be on this road trip.  It certainly beat sitting around in Alabama waiting for news.