GIDDY UP!! The Learish Family headed west this year!! Man, did we pack in as much as we could! We packed up the van and headed first to Estes Park, CO. We rented a little cabin in the woods. Our back yard had elk and bear wondering around and the front yard was the river! There were other cabins scattered around so in the evening it was like your typical camp site. All the kids were running around playing night games, while the adults chilled around a huge fire pit having a drink or two. S'mores and live folk/mountain music also entertained our evenings.
We went fishing for trout and caught these three. Plenty for dinner the next night!!
On one of several trips into the National Park we found our way to the Continental Divide. We saw snow, elk, deer and some breathtaking beautiful scenery.
We rode a cable car to the top of a smaller mountain and did some more climbing, exploring and fed these little chipmunk like animals (yes, we were allowed to feed these animals). Acacia took time each day complete the necessary research to become a junior park ranger!
Randy and the kids went fly fishing one morning. They had to hike a bit to get to the river, wearing their hip waiters.
We went horseback riding in the mountains.
And this is the famous Stanley Hotel, where Steven King stayed while writing The Shining. This is also where the movie was filmed! Scary!
A day of whitewater rafting proved to be the highlighted activity for the family!!
Lots of hiking and exploring.
After a week in Estes Park, we drove north to Cheyenne, WY. While here we spend a day on the air force base for the open house. We saw trained attack dog demonstrations and took tours of the missile launch sites. This we VERY interesting for Randy and I and we spend several hours in a variety of buildings and bunkers. All top secret, so no photos allowed. But, Randy and Chris got to take part in a mach missile launch!! After receiving the code and launch coordinates they fired off 10 missiles!
We bought the wristbands for the kids to ride the carnival rides endlessly for 4 days. I guess they are starting to out grow this activity as they did not ride that many rides! But, we wandered the carnival site, art fairs and various vendors selling their collectibles and unique creations.
We saw a buckin' bull show and the rodeo!
There was an Indian Village with dancing, Indian singing, drumming and flute playing.
We saw Dwight Yoakum, Thompson Square and Luke Brian (and man was it raining).
After about 6 days in WY we packed up the car again and headed north to Custer Park, SD.
We went to Mt. Rushmore!
We drove through Needles Parkway.
And Custer State Park, where we were ambushed by a heard of bison.
On our way home we made a pit stop at Wall Drug and then on to the Bad Lands before driving through the night to arrive back home in Madison.
I can't even begin to share all the other things we did on this trip. It truly was amazing and any part of it I would highly recommend to anyone!! I can't wait to go back and see the tons of stuff we did not have time to see. Also, we could not have asked for better weather. Sunny, 80's - NO humidity and NO bugs what so ever!! Just perfect!
Here is a link to see all our photos from this trip.
