CO destinations
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A day in Idaho Springs, Colorado
I tend to forget how close Idaho Springs is to the Front Range… likely because we almost always get caught in traffic on our way there, turning it into a much longer drive than it should be. But even with traffic, it’s still not that long a drive. Which makes it even more ridiculous that… Continue reading
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A long weekend in Palisade, Colorado
This year, we didn’t have the vacation days to swing a two-week roadtrip, so instead we settled for a much more low key – but still fun – belated anniversary three-day weekend in Palisade, Colorado. Palisade is a small town on Colorado’s Western Slope, best known for its wineries and peach orchards. It’s a town… Continue reading
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Colorado Destinations: Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge
From 1952 to 1994, Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant was home to manufacturing facilities for both nuclear and non-nuclear weapons, including triggers manufactured from the highly radioactive elements uranium and plutonium. After a series of issues (the plant was actually raided by the FBI in 1989 after claims of environmental crimes) followed by permanent ceasing… Continue reading
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Colorado Destinations: Mount Princeton Hot Springs
Until I moved to Colorado, I wasn’t aware of its plethora of hot springs. But if you spend any amount of time in the state – or do a google search of ‘best things to do in Colorado’ – you will quickly discover the popularity of the state’s many hot springs. While there are a… Continue reading
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Playing tourist for a day in Estes Park, Colorado
About a year and a half ago, C and I concocted an idea: spend a day in Estes Park. It’s a town we drive through frequently en route to our hikes in Rocky Mountain National Park. But aside from a quick stop for coffee or beer on the way home, neither of us has actually… Continue reading
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Colorado Destinations: Chalk Creek Canyon, St. Elmo, & Salida
I’m trying something new this year, which is to do a little less research related to our travels. I’m still doing some; I like to know at least vaguely what’s going on and be educated enough to ensure we aren’t going to find ourselves in a situation we’re not prepared for. But I’m learning it’s… Continue reading
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Colorado Destinations: Cottonwood Pass & Buena Vista
Memorial Day weekend in Colorado is a total crapshoot, weather wise. Some years it’s cold and rainy. Some years it’s warm and sunny. Some years it snows. And some years it does all of these things and then some… which, to be honest, is kind of what happened this year. But I digress. Despite the… Continue reading
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History and hiking in the Georgetown-Silver Plume Historic District, Colorado
Like most Colorado mountain towns, Georgetown and Silver Plume were founded by miners. Georgetown was named after prospector George Griffith, who struck gold in the area in 1859. While this triggered a small gold rush, the gold mining operations in the region were only mildly successful due to the relative lack of gold in the… Continue reading
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A day trip to Pawnee National Grassland
The lands of northeastern Colorado have been inhabited for at least 12,000 years, originally by nomadic hunters. More recently, these lands were the home of the Arapaho and Cheyenne, who were forcibly removed in the 1880s to allow white settlers to establish homesteads and farm the land. As settlers soon learned, though, this shortgrass prairie… Continue reading
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A weekend in Twin Lakes, Colorado
The combination of living in Colorado and having a winter anniversary always makes it difficult to figure out how we’re going to celebrate. You just never know what the weather has in store, especially in the mountains. This year we actually had the opposite problem from what we expected: it was going to be too… Continue reading
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Colorado Destinations: Snow Mountain Ranch
Winter is a risky time of year to make partially-non-refundable reservations for anywhere in the Colorado Rockies. Weather can change in an instant, closing mountain passes and rendering travel downright dangerous. But it’s when we could go, so we made the reservation and crossed our fingers and ended up getting pretty lucky. At the suggestion… Continue reading
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Riding the Royal Gorge Railroad
For people who like to celebrate by doing something outdoorsy, winter isn’t the optimal time of year to have an anniversary. Sure, we could have gone skiing… if we felt like dropping $200+ for a single day and spending hours sitting in traffic. (We didn’t.) So instead, we settled on a scenic train ride through… Continue reading
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Colorado Destinations: Manitou Cliff Dwellings
This past winter began fairly mildly, but by March – right about the time I was ready for winter to end – the snow arrived with a vengeance and lingered for nearly 3 more months. The final snow storm arrived 3 days before Memorial Weekend, throwing a wrench into everyone’s plans and thwarting efforts to… Continue reading
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Colorado Destinations: Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge
If ever there was an area of the US with a bizarre history, this is it. Even the name – which combines ‘arsenal’ and ‘wildlife’ into the same sentence – suggests that this land has quite the storied past. Located immediately northeast of Denver, the land encompassed today by Rocky Mountain Arsenal used to be… Continue reading
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Colorado Destinations: Paint Mines Interpretive Park
Our early October visit to the Paint Mines on the plains of Colorado was a last-minute change of plans after our weekend camping reservations got rained out. Scattered showers and thunderstorms, I can handle. An inch and a half (4 cm) of rain while tent camping, I cannot. It would’ve been a miserable weekend. So… Continue reading
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Shadows of the Past – Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Colorado
When I mention giant redwood trees, Sequoia National Park and California are probably two of the first places that come to mind. But if I’d mentioned giant redwood trees about 34 million years ago, you’d most likely be thinking of Colorado instead! Thirty-four million years ago, what is now the Florissant Valley in the Rocky… Continue reading
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Fit for the Gods – Garden of the Gods, Colorado
After waving goodbye to the beauty of Great Sand Dunes, my mom and I continued making our way north. Our next stop was just outside Colorado Springs at the Garden of the Gods. Garden of the Gods is a large public park that is home to towering red rock formations. Its beauty is said to… Continue reading
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