And Then We Stayed Home...

Staycations are nice.  Everyone sleeps in their own beds, you don't have to buy ice every day, it's cleaner, and we don't all have to go to bed at the same time.  There's time to enjoy a summer night in the backyard after the kids are in bed, there's space for separate read aloud stories for each child, there's room for everyone's suggestions to happen.

We went out to dinner when we came home from camping and then laid out our schedule for the week:

Tuesday:  Kung Fu Panda Matinee movie and evening mini golf.

Wednesday:  Pirate's Cove Waterpark.  The trick is to go before all the day camps start.

Thursday:  The warmest day.  So we went swimming at our local pool and had A&W root beer floats after dinner.

Friday:  A trip to the nickel arcade and then Krispy Kreme for National Donut Day.

Saturday:  Hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park. 

We hiked through snow (!) to Alberta Falls.

and enjoyed a walk around beautiful Sprague Lake.

We ate the food we'd intended to eat if we'd been camping and we only spent the cash we had on hand so there are no vacation bills to pay.  (We pocketed the extra to pay for a car repair.)  We read books on the lawn, worked in the yard a little, stretched out that camping laundry all week long, and just relaxed.  Sunday was kept for doing nothing, our tradition of transitioning back into regular life.  We did still clean up the house and do a little bit of work, but because we left town at the beginning and the end it still felt like a vacation.

Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons will always be there. We just know to go at the end of summer now.  So, August 2012 you'll find us there.

Well, We Did Go Camping...

...but this was Plan C.  The night before we were to leave for Plan A, S came down with something that really knocked him askew.  The forecast for the Yellowstone area was going to be down in the 30's at night with snow likely.  So, if he was sick, it wouldn't be the best time to go tent camping.  All of us in one cold tent with one coughing child eleven hours from home... yeah, we cancelled.  Plan B was to stay home a few days and when S was better we'd camp at Rocky Mountain National Park for a few days.  Still camping, still a National Park, but much, much closer and hopefully warmer.

And then S woke up the day were were going to leave and he was FINE.  He's pulled this trick a couple times so he MUST have allergies, but I can't tell the difference until he's over it.  We debated a bit, but after phoning the ranger in Yellowstone and finding out that there was snow on the ground and more to come we still opted for Plan B.  But then our friends called with Plan C and we jumped on it.  Camping with two other families with kids (yay!) and dirtbikes (yay!) out in the middle of beautiful nowhere Colorado.  I'm talking pee-in-the-woods-nowhere.  

It's not the Grand Tetons, but it's Mount Princeton in the Collegiate Range near Buena Vista, CO.  We actually had a beautiful campsite with a stream running nearby, a zero-depth sandy entry shoreline, and rocks and a thirsty Cottonwood to climb on.   It was windy and warm.  Sunburns and drama happened (random Jeep crash in our campsite on night number 1, lost child, vomiting, dead van battery).  But we were so glad to have begun our summer with friends and freedom.  Thanks for the invite, Noy and Dawn!