Weekend, Part 1

It was a long weekend for me and Sean - and not only that, but we both were off for 3 days with no real plans.  Sean was supposed to go biking in Moab, but the plans fell throuhg on that - which I felt bad about, especially after he told me he has wanted to go since he was 17 - which, let's me honest, was a long time ago, since we are so old.  Anyways, as soon as that plan feel through we were on the task to plan on awesome weekend.  What would it be, camping, climbing, hiking?  The world was open to us and we wanted to explore this great state we moved to, but haven't had the chance to do so yet.  We checked the weather and while camping would be doable, Liam's cough might be best served to sleep inside instead of in a cold tent, although we'd be cuddled in the sleeping bag, we decided to pass on that.

We spent the morning on a lovely little hike with a friend Sean met while he was out here prior to me.  We went to Lair O' The Bear Park (http://jeffco.us/parks/parks-and-trails/lair-o-the-bear-park/) located just 15 minute from our place.  We hadn't been there yet, drove by numerous times, saw how packed it can get on a nice day.  I was happy we had plans to head out early, before the crowds got there.  We met up with Summer and Kale and Liam happily got into his backpack.  It's only a matter of time before he wants to just hike, so for now, we will be happy he wants the ride, although, I'm pretty sure Sean's back is a little less than happy today from our hikes.

I have been taking a break from wearing Liam until after I get all my strength back from my sickness, I'm pretty close and am getting there, but just not quite yet.

So, we headed off down a trail that went along Bear Creek.  It was great, I did finally let Burton off the leash, it was pretty calm and he was so happy to run back and forth from one side to the other and smell and play.  Turns out, this park is pretty popular for taking pictures as we passed about 7 or more photo shoots, hoping to avoid getting in any pictures.  I did have to chuckle once at how funny it would be to let Burton go and greet these people, muddy foot prints on the fancy outfits that took so long to pick out.  I didn't do it and wouldn't have, pretty sure NO one there would have been amused.

We found a huge super cool tree that we had to get our picture in.

 It was quite comical watching me get up, but I figured it out.  Burton decided NOT to be in this picture.  We walked a bit more, across a bridge.  We stopped at the creek and tossed some rocks in, the boys explored.  We continued on with more climbing and a few rescues.  We found a great little hidden area off the path to explore.  Turns out we crossed a tiny part of the creek to get to a get to the main creek and it was great.  It was a rocky beach, a fallen tree across the creek, plenty of sticks for Burton to catch and even more trouble for the boys to get into.  Sean decided to cross the tree and of course, Liam had to do it as well - he was so upset when Sean wouldn't let him go, it was almost comical.

We stayed there and played for a long while. We skipped stones, we chatted, we sat and had a snack, all while Burton went into the creek, got caught in a current and drifted down creek a bit, found his way out only to do it all over again.  It was such a great place, private and hidden.  It was a place we plan to go back to, take a picnic lunch and spend the day.  The trails were great, perfect for my winter of Snowshoeing.  I'm so excited to have explored a new park.  I was getting spoiled, needing my mountain escape, when I realize that's where I live, my backyard is a mountain escape.  

We decided to head home for lunch and then head back out on an off road adventure.  We took the road passed Mt. Evans and Echo Lake.  We pulled of and Sean instructed me to go up something the resembled a road.  This was my view from the rear view mirror at that point.   

I drove this time, for a bit, full of giggles and screams (which Liam enjoyed and joined in my screams.)  We drove and drove for what seemed like forever, of course, it was about 0.5 miles.  We finally hit the "top" of where we planned to go and got out to take some nice pictures, you know, with an actual camera instead of a phone.  We walked around a little bit, I climbed up some rocks and could breath, it was great!  

Liam demanded more wiggle wiggle of the truck and I let Sean take over.

We continued along the loop, which was much tougher than we thought.  But it was fun, we talked out a few problems, I scolded Sean for going to fast and knocking the mirror in, we sang and laughed and giggled and screamed a bit more.  It was a great way to end the day.  We took the road back home and decided to hit the hay, in the hopes of more adventures on Sunday.  After all, we had 2 whole more days of nothing but enjoying Colorado left of the weekend.