First, we went to Idaho Springs to stop for a brief tourist walk. Of course, in Colorado, every location has its own special steam engine. Idaho Springs was no different.
After convincing Ethan to participate by allowing him to use his scooter, we followed a paved trail to Bridal Veil Falls and a historic waterwheel.
The creek (river?) itself was enough of a draw for us to stay for awhile.
When it was time to head back to the van, Anna and I followed the trail up and over the interstate while the others went back the way we came. We met up at the gas station to continue our journey. The fresh air and (mild) exercise was good for everyone considering we still had many miles to drive that day.
From Idaho Springs, we took the Peak-to-Peak highway to Estes Park. During the morning drive we encountered sunny skies, cloudy skies, mountains hidden by fog, drizzle, rain, and hail. But the winding roads and beautiful views were worth it.
From Estes Park we drove up through Fort Collins and then continued on our "back roads" trail through north central Colorado and southeastern Wyoming. Somewhere in there we drove into a massive hail storm. We could see the dark clouds ahead of us, with some grayish/whitish patches, but there wasn't any easy way around the storm.
The hail quickly grew from pea sized to dime sized to at least quarter sized. Matt, who usually resists pulling off to the side of the road during weather disturbances (to avoid being rear-ended), finally had to pull over and stop at one point because he could no longer see any of the lines on the road. The following video is from that moment, after the hail had let up some.
It was probably the scariest moment of our trip, at least until Matt's phone alerted us to a tornado warning. Thankfully for us, the area affected was eastern Wyoming, not central Wyoming. When we finally thought to check the van for damage later in the day, we found many dings and dents, but nothing worthy of contacting an insurance agent.
We continued to see evidence of this hail storm as we traveled on our way, both with piles of hail on the sides of the roads and with distant hills being covered with hail drifts. At first we weren't sure if what we saw was hail or snow, but as we got closer to some, we realized that it was hail.
Needless to say, we don't often experience these kinds of weather events back home in Wisconsin. We also don't often experience the lack of cell phone/internet coverage like we had in the remote parts of the west we drove through. I don't think we ever actually lost cell coverage, but we no longer had access to our data plans once we were out of the Denver area.
About 12 or so hours after we left Adam's house, we arrived at our rented home for the next stop. We have learned in the past few years that having a home instead of a hotel room is well worth it on a vacation like this.
We found another gem this year, situated right on the Big Horn River just 10 minutes from Michal and Sam's house in Thermopolis.
The house, the yard, and the freedom it provided were all wonderful blessings to experience, especially for those of us who were extra tired ...
In spite of the beauty of the days and nights out here, the sun didn't set until after 9 and was shining into Ethan's window before 6 every morning. That was a little rough.
For our four nights (three days) in Thermopolis, we did our best to balance family time and sight-seeing time. The family time was split between our rental and the Needham's house.
One evening, we hosted the Needham family for a cook-out and campfire.
Four adults and eight kids can go through quite a number of s'mores in an evening!
I believe that was also the night that Ethan invited everyone into the sandbox to watch him make "fine sand". I think it's awesome that all of the kids and some of the adults took him up on the invitation.
Whether we were at our rental or the Needham's house, Anna could be found working her way through the first 30 or so cards of her Rush Hour game, or hanging out with one of the Needham's pets. It was hard for her to keep up with the cousins, but she was happy to entertain herself for long periods of time.
Jonah, the oldest of this group of kids, also tended to disappear into his own interests when allowed. If you couldn't hear his voice, he could usually be found reading his way through any number of books.
The girls closest in age (Kate - 9, Ruth - 8, Julia - almost 7) discovered they shared a common love for a certain book series and spent a fair portion of their time together planning their own epic story. Kate and Ruth have plans to write a couple of novels together. They created outlines, illustrations, and each wrote several pages of her story during our time together.
I have a picture from two years ago of this same trio and wanted to get a similar shot of them again this year.
The youngest boys (Ethan - 5 and Zeke - 4) played endless imagination games in the "kid caves" of the upstairs of our rental.
Zeke also learned that Uncle Matt is a good, crazy buddy to have.
As opposed to last year, Ethan took a total of 1 car nap this year, and that was on our last day. Instead, our youngest could be found from time to time experiencing some quiet time by playing or choosing to eat by himself.
The next update will include photos and stories from our adventures in central Wyoming!
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