{"id":5446,"date":"2018-08-23T16:29:47","date_gmt":"2018-08-23T21:29:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/?p=5446"},"modified":"2018-08-23T16:48:23","modified_gmt":"2018-08-23T21:48:23","slug":"vacationcolorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/?p=5446","title":{"rendered":"Vacation~Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"

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MFH (My Favorite Husband) and I just returned home from a two week vacation. We visited two different states, spending a week in each state.\u00a0 We’re going to be chatting about our week in Colorado in this post and we’ll chat about our visit to Iowa in a separate post.<\/p>\n

Colorado was our second state to visit.\u00a0 We had spent the first half of our vacation visiting my In Laws in Iowa before pointing the car west towards the mountains.<\/p>\n

A year ago #1 Daughter and her MFH had been married and we were going out to celebrate their anniversary with them and to go camping in Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP).\u00a0 We were excited to see them again and excited to go camping!<\/p>\n

Most of you probably recall the little drama we had with our old tent?\u00a0 Poor MFH!\u00a0 We sure had a hard time trying to decide whether or not to replace that tent.\u00a0 Mother Nature did a fine job deciding that for us!\u00a0 The poor tent, it served us well for many years.<\/p>\n

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Our first two nights in Colorado, we hotel-ed it.\u00a0 We had campground reservations for only three nights.\u00a0 To be honest, we weren’t so sure how we’d do sleeping on the ground.\u00a0 The last time we’d tent camped had been over 20 years ago!\u00a0 We’d loved it but 20 years is a lot of water under the bridge.<\/p>\n

We met up with #1 Daughter and her MFH for dinner.\u00a0 We caught up on laundry.\u00a0 We caught up on a little sleep!\u00a0 Soon it was time to head up to the mountains.<\/p>\n

Now, we’d lived 11 years in Estes Park and our campsite was only about 15-ish miles from the house where we’d lived.\u00a0 It was kind of weird being that close to “home,” but we had zero desire to drive past our old place or anything like that.\u00a0 We WERE thankful for knowing the back roads so we could skip through “tourist” traffic to make our trip a bit quicker.<\/p>\n

We camped in Moraine Campground. It’s our favorite campground in RMNP.\u00a0 We found our campsite:\u00a0 Loop A #82.\u00a0 It was great!!!<\/p>\n

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We had wild turkeys strolling past our tent every morning and evening.\u00a0 They were super casual like they owned the place, which I guess they kind of do?<\/p>\n

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They’re starting to have bear problems in the park.\u00a0 Last time we camped there, this was not a problem.\u00a0 We were surprised to find we had to store all our stuff in a huge metal “closet.”\u00a0 No big deal, just a surprise.\u00a0 I guess I shouldn’t be surprised because when we lived there, I chased more bears off my deck than I can count.\u00a0 They kept getting into my bird feeder!\u00a0 I’d go out the door, wave my arms around and yell at them, “Get off my deck!!!”\u00a0 They’d just kind of look at me and think, “Whatever!” and saunter off.<\/p>\n

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Our first run in Colorado was before we went camping.\u00a0 We were still “in the valley” on the front range.\u00a0 We had a great time!\u00a0 MFH found these trails at a rock formation called, Devil’s Backbone.<\/p>\n

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That was some fun running!!!\u00a0 Great trails!<\/p>\n

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The day we arrived in RMNP, we did a 5 mile hike towards Fern Lake.\u00a0 We had a bit of a late start so didn’t get all the way to the lake.\u00a0 We did a little math and realized we wouldn’t be back to the campsite in time before it got dark.\u00a0 Seeing as we hadn’t brought a headlamp or anything with us, we needed to be back before we couldn’t see where we were going.<\/p>\n

The very next day we did our BIG run.\u00a0 We had decided to run up Old Fall River Road.<\/p>\n

Old Fall River Road was opened to traffic in 1920.\u00a0 It’s a narrow, one way, gravel road that climbs from 8,000 ft to almost 12,000 ft elevation.\u00a0 Traffic is only allowed to vehicles going up.\u00a0 No downhill traffic is allowed.\u00a0 There are a zillion *slight exaggeration* switchbacks and the elevation climb is substantial and fast!\u00a0 Wowzers but that was tough and amazing!!!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0We climbed 1,800 feet within the first 2 miles. When we turned around, we had climbed close to 2,300 ft.<\/p>\n

Bear in mind that we live and train at 215 ft elevation so this was no joke for breathing! There’s no air up there, then again there’s no humidity, either. I guess it’s a trade off?<\/p>\n

The first mile was a toughie but then we both settled into the run and had a blast!!!<\/p>\n

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MFH and I ended up running half way up Old Fall River Road before turning to head back down.\u00a0 That is one run I don’t think either one of us will ever forget~it was one for the books!!!<\/p>\n

That evening, we decided to celebrate that run.\u00a0 The campground had this guy that sold firewood and Ice Cream!!!\u00a0 That was the most delicious ice cream ever!<\/p>\n

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We hiked up Deer Mountain the next day.\u00a0 That was a fun and easy hike.\u00a0 Deer Mountain is only about 10,000 ft elevation and we were getting used to the altitude by then.\u00a0 We were feeling like little mountain goats.<\/p>\n

When we reached the top of the mountain, we sat on some rocks and rested.\u00a0 I was getting a pic of the mountains when this little chipmunk popped up and photo-bombed my pic!\u00a0 This pic is a total fluke but I laughed myself silly.\u00a0 Cheeky little chipmunk!<\/p>\n

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Later that same day, MFH and I grabbed the shuttle over to Bear Lake.\u00a0 This lake has a crushed gravel, half mile trail.\u00a0 It’s a pretty lake with LOTS of people.\u00a0 Most of the time we do stuff where most people don’t like to go but because Bear Lake is so pretty, we decided to head on over.<\/p>\n

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Don’t forget that all this time the August Plank Challenge has been going and people have diligent in their planks!\u00a0 Don’t think that we were being slackers!<\/p>\n

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Tradition dictates that MFH pops Jiffy Pop Popcorn over a campfire.\u00a0 Our last night in camp, MFH pulled out the Jiffy Pop and made the popcorn.\u00a0 It came out perfect!<\/p>\n

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Next thing we knew, it was time to pack up the tent and head back down to the valley.\u00a0 We’d had a wonderful time camping and know we’ll do it again.\u00a0 The new tent was comfy.\u00a0 We didn’t get too creaky sleeping on the ground.\u00a0 YAY, us!!!<\/p>\n

We arrived back in Ft. Collins to meet up with #1 Daughter and her MFH one more time before heading home.\u00a0 Because we’d arrived a little earlier than planned, we walked through a flower garden at CSU (Colorado State University).\u00a0 This was pretty close to the house we’d lived in the two years we’d been in Ft. Collins.\u00a0 There had been quite a few walks down to these flowers but, I guess because I’m a slower learner or something, this was the first time I realized the giant can of soup across the street from the flowers was an Andy Warhol sculpture!\u00a0 Who knew!?<\/p>\n

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That wrapped up our last afternoon in Colorado.\u00a0 We met up with “the kids” for dinner then the next morning, pointed the car east and headed for home.<\/p>\n

Getting this crew to take a serious selfie was pointless.\u00a0 LOL!!!<\/p>\n

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After two days driving, we were rewarded with this beautiful blue sign:<\/p>\n

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There’s no place like home!!!<\/p>\n

#IRun4Aiden<\/p>\n

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MFH (My Favorite Husband) and I just returned home from a two week vacation. We visited two different states, spending a week in each state.\u00a0 We’re going to be chatting about our week in Colorado in this post and we’ll chat about our visit to Iowa in a separate post. Colorado was our second state […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21,22,6,8,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5446"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5446"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5471,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5446\/revisions\/5471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}