a former gymnast with a neverending case of wanderlust
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 Colorado Destinations: Mount Princeton Hot Springs
About a year and a half ago, Chelsea 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 Playing tourist for a day in Estes Park, Colorado
The final day of our Memorial weekend trip was upon us, which meant one thing: whitewater rafting time! We were signed up for a full-day trip on the Arkansas River with Noah’s Ark Rafting. I booked this trip back in January, at which time I debated between Saturday or Sunday and joked that, no matter… Continue reading Rafting the Arkansas River through Browns Canyon National Monument
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 Colorado Destinations: Chalk Creek Canyon, St. Elmo, & Salida
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 Colorado Destinations: Cottonwood Pass & Buena Vista
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 Colorado Destinations: Georgetown-Silver Plume Historic District
I was sorting through some old posts on here recently and stumbled across this one from a few years ago about my 2010 trip to Colorado National Monument. I imagine many of you can relate to the cringey feeling you get when you read something you wrote so many years ago. And, of course, the… Continue reading Colorado National Monument
By far, most people who visit Dinosaur go to the Utah half of the monument. It’s the side with the dinosaur bones for which the monument is most famous. It’s also the more accessible part of the monument, with developed campgrounds and easy river access. However… what the Colorado half lacks in dinosaur fossils, it… Continue reading Canyon Country – Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado
Bent’s Old Fort was in fact not a fort in the traditional sense. It may have resembled military fortifications, but it was actually a trading post. Brothers Charles and William Bent and their business partner Ceran St. Vrain built the fort a few miles outside La Junta in 1833, choosing this particular place because it was fairly centrally-located between the fur trappers of the Rocky Mountains, the native lands of the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, and Comanche tribes, and people traveling between the US and Mexico on the Santa Fe Trail. It quickly became a key location for trading and the main stop on the Santa Fe trail for travelers in need of rest, repairs, and replenishment.
The Eastern Colorado plains are the original homeland of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Comanche, Osage, Kiowa, Sioux, Jicarilla Apache, and Ute tribes (source). But by the mid-1800s they were being systemically dispossessed from their homelands. The 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie established that the Cheyenne and Arapaho would retain some of their native lands in exchange… Continue reading Heartbreaking history on the Colorado plains – Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site
Handstands Around the World 