The Steele Family Adventures: September 2015

I don’t know when I’ll be able to actually put this on the blog, we haven’t had internet for a while, but I figured I would type it up now and post when I can. We are having so much fun on our “Tour of Colorado”, as I’ve been calling it. We spent the first two nights camping at Golden Gate State Park campground and it was so pretty there. One day we went on a 3 mile hike to Dude’s pond and then through the mountains, it was really pretty but there were a lot of bear warnings so I banged sticks together the whole time to try and scare them away. After our hike it was raining pretty bad so we drove down to Golden (the town) and ate and shopped around a little. Other than that we had perfect weather there. Lennon loved running around the camp and throwing all the rocks he could get his hands on. He thought it was funny to run away from our camp and have us chase him down the road and one day when he was doing that he tripped and fell flat on his mouth and nose. There was blood everywhere and he got a huge fat lip, it was so sad.

After we left the state park we drove up to Boulder and shopped, ate lunch, and played at the little splash pad for a minute. It had been 3 days since Lennon’s last bath and we figured the splash pad would do him some good. We really liked Boulder, there was a whole street closed off just for people to walk, shop, and eat. There were street performers and everything. Lennon’s favorite was the banjo player so we let him give the guy a dollar bill.

From Boulder we drove up to Estes Park, it was pretty cold up there and raining a bit so we decided to stay at a hotel for the night, it was good to give Lennon an actual bath and sleep in a real bed for a night. The hotel had a nice big indoor pool and we had a lot of fun. We woke up and went to breakfast for my birthday. The waitress gave Lennon a toy dinosaur to play with and he was the best he’s ever been at a restaurant. It was a really nice birthday morning.

After breakfast we packed up and drove into Rocky Mountain National Park. We hiked to a really pretty waterfall, I’m pretty sure it was called Alluvial Falls. Lennon of course loved the hike, any time he can throw rocks he’s happy, especially when he can throw them into water. We took Old Fall River Road though the park. It’s a nine mile one way dirt road and it’s uphill the whole way. It climbs over 3500 feet in elevation, when you reach the very top you’re at 11,796 feet above sea level. The road itself was really pretty, there’s a guide you can buy at the beginning that tells you what to look for at each mile marker. Once we got to the top it was so windy and so cold. We climbed a bunch of stairs to the very highest point (12,005 ft) and took a picture then hurried back down to buy some hot chocolate at the visitor’s center.

We left the park and headed down towards Lake Granby looking for a place to camp. Every campground online showed that they were full (Labor Day weekend) but Kyle was certain that if we just asked we would find something. So we drove out to Arapaho Bay campground, which happened to be over 30 minutes off the main road, and saw that the campground sign said they were full. Kyle insisted on asking the host just to make sure, and we’re lucky he did. A campsite had just opened up because the campers decided to leave early. We ended up in one of the best sites in the campground. We were camped right on the lake. It was pretty windy and rained a couple times while we were there but we still managed to have a lot of fun. We threw rocks in the lake and Kyle got in and swam a bit. One day when we were out for a drive we saw a fox right next to the road. It was so pretty. We drove to the little town of Grand Lake on our last morning there, it’s such a cute little town with wooden boardwalks down each side of the road in front of all the shops and restaurants. It reminded us of a mixture of Bandon, Oregon and Alaska. We smashed a penny and bought some fudge and then headed back to camp. It stopped raining just long enough for our tent to dry slightly and for us to get packed up.

We left Lake Granby and headed to Steamboat Springs. We stopped for lunch at a place called The Back Door Grill; they’re famous for their hamburgers. Kyle got a peanut butter, bacon, siracha burger and it was actually really good! Another burger they had was served with a fried egg, peanut butter, and a donut for a bun. I wasn’t sure what to think of all that so I just had a plain regular cheeseburger, it was good too. From there we drove up to Steamboat Lake State Park and got a really pretty campsite right on the lake. We pretty much had the campground to ourselves, which is nice because Lennon loves to run in the road and into other people’s camps. He thinks everyone is his friend. We went on a nature walk around the lake and saw some bald eagles swoop down for fish, that was really cool. We drove back down to the town of Steamboat Springs one day and spent the day shopping, playing at the arcade, and eating ice cream. It started getting really cold at night while we were up there. We would wake up and our tent would be covered in frost and we would have to scrape the car windows! That’s when I decided we had better be done camping, so we headed home.

We drove straight home from Steamboat Springs and got home at about 9pm. It feels so good to be back in Utah. We loved our summer adventures and our fun week long camping trip but it’s nice to be back home with family and friends.

Sorry for the picture overload, we saw so many pretty things on our trip it was hard to only pick a few.