Shocking Great Fun in Colorado

This is a creek running through the Boulder Mountain Lodge camp ground where Blue Eyes, Baby Girl, Noel, my 14-year-old nephew, Charles and I are staying outside of Boulder, Colorado, Here are a few notes from our vacation so far…

- There are creeks, mountains, trees, lakes and waterfalls everywhere we look. It is beautiful.

- Noel and Charles have said ‘this is SOOOO amazing’ about a thousand times, for every creek, mountain, tree, lake and waterfall they see. They are searching for houses in a real estate magazine and if that doesn’t work out now, they’ll go to college here later.

- Our cabin is pretty quirky. The Boulder Mountain Lodge has some motel-like rooms, some camp sites for tents and one cabin, where we are staying. The cabin looks like it has been built by hand, one room at a time, without expert help, with a combination of new and used parts. The rooms are odd shapes, there are odd steps where you don’t expect them and the stairs to the second floor are so steep I feels like I’m climbing up to a treehouse.

- The cabin doesn’t have air conditioning. This initially caused panic, since we have been living in nearly 100 degree weather for a month now back home. But the amazing thing is, it cools off here at night, and not just to 78, like back home, but in the 50s. We keep some windows open and it feels great.

- Boulder Mountain Lodge has wireless Internet, but it only works in the office and for only a few people at a time, which makes sense, because only a few people fit in the office, but I’m not sure they should advertise wireless access.

- Because we keep the windows open, we can hear the birds and the creek and the wind in the trees all the time. And maybe we don’t need the Internet as much as we think.

- Baby Girl has moved to an alternative nap schedule, which adjusts to what the family is doing, but takes some extra love and attention to help her adjust. She is doing great and I think a little part of her knows she is somewhere different and special.

- We had Father’s Day for Blue Eyes on Sunday. He got a t-shirt with a name tag printed on it with “DaDa” as the name, because Blue Eyes loves hearing Baby Girl say Da Da even when we can’t tell for sure if she knows what it means yet. He got a custom-ordered “World’s Best Dad” trophy from Noel, with a personal letter from Noel explaining why he won.

- We learned that you can’t take the distance in miles and divide by 60 to get how many hours it will take to get somewhere when you are in Colorado and there is a mountain range between you and your destination.

- We learned that while it might take longer, driving through a mountain range is amazingly beautiful.

- We all went on the Swing Shot at Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park and it was SHOCKING and GREAT FUN and I can’t wait to see what happens tomorrow.