Roughing it and a Gorge

We're back to life as we know it... We had a really nice weekend for the most part. Shawn took over 100 pictures but I promise to share only the best ones. We had a really nice visit with my mom, as always.

Friday was our volunteer day at Tyler's school. The kids loved getting to meet "Tyler's Grandma" and Ms. P seemed glad that I brought reinforcements. Three hours with 25 six and seven year olds is enough to make me want to pull my hair out, though! They were in rare form, perhaps ready to be out for the weekend. I'm always glad I went, when I have the opportunity to go, but I'm glad at the same time to be done as well. After we left, we went to lunch together... and enjoyed a rare opportunity to have soup, salad and bread sticks along with uninterrupted conversation.

Next, off to a cabin that Shawn found us, in Canyon City. The ride down took a little longer than we'd expected, but it was a beautiful drive. The trip to the cabin was an adventure in and of itself. First of all, it's about 17 miles south of the city. 15 of those miles are on dirt roads. Up a winding, curvy mountain with NO guardrails to be found! After dark, it was quite a scary ride. Especially for my poor mother, who is afraid of heights as well as driving off mountains and falling to her death.

We survived the drive... that is until we got to the unplowed driveway that was about a half mile long. The snow there was not fresh and was more like the substance of permafrost. I got stuck... several times. I was feeling stressed out because of this and the boys were freaking out a little bit so I decided to let Shawn give it a shot. Of course, he was able to make it through the snow, right up to the door. Here is the path he blazed:

Upon entering the cabin, once we dug around in the dark and finally found the key hidden under a rock, we had instructions to follow to "open" up the cabin. Things like turning on the electricity and the water. Unfortunately, the folks who owned the cabin didn't have the electricity in the kitchen on during the winter and a pipe had burst. Water was shooting everywhere... What a mess! On top of that, an hour past bed time and hoping to de~stress from the trip there... well let's just say we were trying hard to keep smiles on our faces.

To top it off we slept on a water bed that night... Shawn and I that is. There were twin beds for the boys and Mom slept on the bottom of a bunk bed (poor Mom!). I am not a fan of the water bed, though. Especially the ones where when the person next to you moves, the motion causes you to go flying up in the air. Luckily, Shawn was doped up on NyQuil, trying to recover from a nasty cold, and he snored most of the night away... without moving too much. I think I slept about 3 hours that night, though. Mom slept about that much also, though I think mostly because she was dreading the ride back down the mountain in the morning.

But in the morning, despite the drama of melting snow in order to flush the toilet, brushing our teeth with bottled water and trying to recover from a rough night... we woke up to this view:

The ride back down the mountain was much less dramatic than the ride up had been... We saw vistas like this, which in the dark unknown were terrifying, during the day were breathtaking:

We were headed to Buckskin Joe's first... a place I visited at 16 and was sure the boys would love. Unfortunately, when my pregnant brain looked at the website and saw that they opened May 1st, I read in my head that they were open March 1st. Thankfully, the Royal Gorge does not close. It was cold and not too crowded, so most of the attractions were not open, but we'll have to go back again. We did get to ride on a tram...

Walk across the bridge...
Ride on an Incline Railroad.... Get some inspiration...

And see the bridge from a lot of different angles...
Let's not forget the souvenir squished pennies...

We saw some wildlife, too! This was a white bison, of which I have never even heard of. I thought they only came in brown.

These guys were shy around the boys but Shawn was less scary, apparently...

I'll leave you with one more... me with my Honey :)