Spring in the Rockies

The front range of Colorado dies in the winter. For those of you who live in wetter or more temperate climates who think that your lawn dies in the winter, I invite you to come to Colorado Springs in the winter. Our lawn dies completely, no green at all, just crunchy yellow grass. The world becomes brown. The only color is the dark green of evergreens with the occasional exception of the few trees like the blue spruce in our yard.

The small amount of moisture that does fall in wintertime falls in the form of powdered snow so fine and cold that it freeze-dries plants before it can thaw and eke out the small amount of moisture available in this styrofoam like snow. You begin to forget why you moved here in the first place. Then spring comes, the grass resurrects, the trees get their leaves, and you remember why you like this area of Colorado so much. Spring here is truly beautiful.

Memorial Day 2009, May 25, dawned bright and sunny with the promise of a change in the gloomy weather that had prevailed so far this Holiday weekend. Weekend plans for a hike to the Crags had been postponed to Monday due to rain the previous two days and the bright sunny morning was encouraging. However, there were some high thin clouds that threatened of afternoon thunderstorms.

With Dad spending so much time away with work, he was determined to do something fun and out of the house as a family; you know, quality family time. He has been to the Crags, but in October after Colorado had begun to brown. The rest of the family had never been there so it seemed like a good place to go.

Starting off at the trail head.

Spring has yet to fully arrive at this elevation. The deciduous plants are just beginning to bud and the grass just starting to green. But it has been raining and the evergreens are thriving. This part of the trail was somewhat reminiscent of Dad's time in the Northwest; the trail is wet, the air is wet, the plants are dripping, and the moss is a vivid green. The Northwest just has MUCH more moss and more undergrowth.

Also reminiscent of his time in the Northwest, Dad had to carry one of his companions up the trail. Actually, this was good practice for Dad's Philmont trip this summer. Between the backpack of lunch and raincoats and Heber on the shoulders, he is carrying nearly the weight he will be carrying in his pack at Philmont. Heber probably spent a little more than half the hike in this position.

A beaverdam backfilled with sand and created a wide spot in the creek near a meadow. This spot became the topic of a discussion on camping. Plans are underway.

There are fields of giant granite boulders perfect for youngin's to climb and explore.

The source of the granite boulders. These cliffs rise above the valleys and at the top are the granite spires that make the crags.

The trail winds for over a mile through these small mountain valleys along the creek; absolutely beautiful with the vegetation and water in the bottom surrounded be granite cliffs and spires.

More pictures of the trail. I hope you don't mind, this is for posterity. Again, notice how Heber rolls.

This little valley forks around the rocks you see ahead. The main trail continues to the right and follows the edge of the hill. The bottom is kind of swampy, especially right now.

This table rock became our lunch table. We supped on PB&J, Doritos, and grape juice.

The youngin's participated in a little after lunch climb.

There were some creek crossings consisting of balancing on small branches as they rolled and floated in the water. Dad helped the youngin's cross.

After a little more than a mile of following the creek through little valleys, the trial entered the trees and the upward climb began. There was also more snow in the shade of the forest.

Dad told the youngin's how he had taken pictures sitting in the cradle of this seat branch when he was here before. Anna and Spencer had to have a go.

Rachel was too big a forest chicken to try the cradle seat branch, but she had to be included by swinging on lower branches.

Nearing the ridge and the worst of the climb.

From the ridge, you could look northeast at Crystal Reservoir (on the right) and other's whose names I can't recall.

Anna found this walking stick discarded by a past hiker. It is two feet taller than her, but she laid claim and drug it to the top. Mom finally made her leave it behind in an attempt to protect everyone else.

Nearing the top.

Looking back to the south. Pike's Peak is just a couple miles behind and a couple thousand feet higher than that peak. Real smile or not; you decide.

There were some cool formations and erosions in the rocks.

This was taken at the top. This is looking back toward Breckenridge. The little bird on the rock behind Spencer flew around our heads. He stayed close waiting for us to leave. We left him some pretzel crumbs. We were scarcely off the rock before he was snacking on pretzel crumbs. You wouldn't know it by this picture, but Spencer did have a good time as I recall.

The plains between Divide and Woodland Park are in the background. Woodland park is even visible in the right side of the picture.

Anna in particular was intrigued by the puddles in the rocks.

The viewer is looking to the west. The family is looking east.

Headed back down, we began to feel the occasional raindrop.

The trail became a creek in places and a puddle in others. The youngin's found some high ground.

The youngin's were promised that they could visit this cave on the way back. It turned out to be a good refuge from the rain and sleet that were falling fully be this point. Notice the ponchos on the girls.

A picture from the top of granite boulders.

Some miscellaneous pictures from the trek back.

This log bridge crosses the creek on another trail, but the youngin's had to investigate.

The trailhead parking was completely full to overflowing when we returned. I guess that explains all the groups of people we passed as we headed down.

The drive home was peaceful enough until we got back to town. US 24 was backed up from I-25 to Redrocks. We decided to take 31st to Filmore. Filmore was backed up from I-25 to the top of the hill. It took us probably a dozen cycles of the signal to get to I-25. Then the rain struck. The concrete surface of the freeway could not shed the water fast enough. We arrived at home safe and tired. Today was a good day.

P.S. It raining again.

Spring Break 2009 Trip Day 6 Home Sweet Home

The day began early in order to catch an 8:00 am (7:00 am MDT) session at the Winter Quarters Temple. The temple is very nice. It has stained glass windows throughout. And to make the windows even more cool, there are circular windows inside the stained glass windows with sketches of different pioneer scenes.

I returned to the hotel, made a quick change and we hit the road at about 10:15 am (9:15 am MDT) in search of a gas station that also sold diesel. What up Nebraska?! After driving down the freeway until my nerves were on edge, we finally found an exit with fueling stations. On top of being impossible to locate the road to the different stations, none of them had diesel. I had to go to a truck stop and use the truckers messy, leaky pumps.

We decided that Omaha is on another planet. The other places we visited were each different, but they were all in America. Not Omaha. The only time it felt normal was when we were at the temple. This perception was certainly perpetuated by the petroleum procurement problems. All of Nebraska was strange, but Omaha was not on this planet.

As I mentioned in yesterday's blog, the batteries in the camera died; no pictures today.

Nebraska is FLAT!

We stopped in Kearney, Nebraska to grab some lunch and check out our first Cabella's store. I hope that the other stores are more impressive than the one in Kearney. Two-thirds of the store was clothes and two thirds of those were either camouflage or hunter orange. I did get a hiking pole from the clearance rack for Philmont and the kids got Life is Good caps. I wanted to see more camping gear. I did hear a lot of twang; a hunting store in Nebraska.

At one point we passed a feed lot and Jen was asking some questions. I cracked a dumb joke about the cows and we started to giggle. It quickly escalated into hilarious, uproarious laughter. I was trying to drive with tears coming out of my eyes and filling up my glasses. This lasted for 5 miles. Then we chuckled for another couple of miles. Later on we were in cruising I-76 close to Denver and Jen brought it up again, started chuckling, and got me started again. Next thing I knew, we were laughing again. I guess we just needed a good laugh after hours of driving.

We finally arrived home at 8:00 pm MDT (8:00 pm local time). The trip was absolutely wonderful. We want to do it again. The kids travelled very well. My only complaint on that front is that, because Heber is recently potty-trained, we have to stop whenever he says he needs to go. (On a side note, this also means that we passed many semi's three or four times) The kids were excited with many of the sites and behaved themselves very well for the most part. But it is sooo good to be home.

Spring Break 2009 Trip Day 5 Winter Quarters

Today dawned gray and chilly. But then again, so has every day of our trip. Today was a little colder than the rest except maybe Monday morning in Colorado Springs. From emails on my blackberry to comments left on voicemails, we got the feeling that Colorado has been getting buried. The checks of the weather this morning on the internet confirmed that snow was in the forecast today for Colorado Springs. But we were traversing Iowa and the forecast looked good, sunny skies.
So we bid a reluctant farewell to Nauvoo at 8:00 am MDT (9:00 am local time). The kids actually said good bye to the temple as we passed. After a short trip east and north, we left Illinois and crossed into Iowa. The bridge was narrow and had some strange, abrupt angles.



This was the second and last time crossing the Mississippi this trip.



After crossing the Mississippi River, we were in Iowa where we would spend most of the trip today.




The kids soon found ways to entertain themselves. Here the girls are making their McDonalds toys into Superdogs with Kleenex.

Iowa is painfully flat. The horizon in some areas is a razor thin, perfectly flat line. And one thing they could really use is an infusion of trees if for no other reason than they could really use the wind break. Once we hit I-80 and headed east, we were bucking the wind. I don't know how you did it, Perigo family.

When we were planning this trip, we had a difficult time making hotel reservations for Nebraska. We were planning on spending LAST night here, but we kept getting the run around on getting a hotel room. When we got to Nauvoo, we discovered that the Woodruff Hotel and booked us for 3 nights, so we decided to stay for 3 nights. And it turned out to be a very good thing. We still didn't get all we wanted to do done. And as we were planning this trip, we couldn't get any information on Winter Quarters on the internet.

So we headed out this morning for the unknown with no hotel reservation. We had no idea where we were going to stay or what we were going to do when we got here. We just hoped to attend the Winter Quarters Temple, see the cemetary and hopefully find some other stuff to do.

As we got near the border (the Missouri River), we started seeing signs for the Mormon Trail and were a little encouraged.

We crossed the Missouri River into Nebraska and knew we were close, but close to what?

Although Google Maps and directions on my Blackberry have served us extremely well this trip (my battery is constantly dead because the GPS is constantly tracking our location and showing me on the map real-time), it was nice that things were well signed when we started getting close. This was especially helpful when we got to a turn and weren't sure because the street sign was missing. These big green signs steered us to our destination.

As we crested the hill, the temple came into view. Then came into view a building right across a side street from the temple that had a Mormon Pioneer Trail Center sign. We pulled in to ask about lodging. (We already knew the schedule and number of the temple because we had looked them up on the Blackberry on the road.) The missionary at the front desk was genuinely excited to talk to us and gave us a discount flier that they had worked out with one of the hotels. I called the hotel right there and made a reservation. It is just a Comfort Inn, but the rate it half what we could have gotten on our own.

Then the missionary called and made reservations at the temple for Jen for the session that was starting in a half hour and one for me first thing in the morning. Jen changed in the bathroom there and walked across the street to the temple. The kids and I watched a video and took a tour of the center. Then we walked across the street to the cemetery where the camera batteries died. I planned to get more pictures of the cemetery and some of the temple. It is definitely one of the smaller temples. Jen said that it is very much like the Reno temple inside. It is cold here. Then we hurried back to get inside the building and hung out until Jen's session was done.

The view of the visitor's center from the temple gate.

This is a statue of parents burying their child in the cemetery behind (in front of) the temple.

Then we checked into our hotel, ordered some bad pizza that took forever, and put the kids to bed. Another successful day on our journey.