We arrived around 5:30pm or so on Saturday, the 19th. Topher went straight for the shovel and dirt and hardly stopped playing in it until we left over a week later. He had the best time. I've never seen him more happy. He was definitely in his element. He's a true outdoorsman, that's for sure. Besides playing in the dirt, he enjoyed running around the camp site, going for walks around the campgrounds, feeding the chipmonks and squirrels with Grandpa, and playing with his toys in the camper with Grandma. Following are all the "Topher pics" from the trip...
As for the rest of us, I think we had just as much fun as Topher did. We got to do some hiking and fishing and general sight-seeing. Bruce, Jon, Padg and I hiked the Weminuche (Wem-in-ooch) Trail on Wednesday (http://www.coloradowilderness.com/wildpages/weminuche.html). It's about a 6-mile hike and a really good part of it is uphill. But once you get to "the meadows" (see pics) there's great fishing. I'm getting better and better at fly fishing. I caught about 8 fish that day. None were very big, but that's ok. Jon caught about 35 and Padg caught about 15 so it was a pretty good day. The guys also hiked up the "Ute Creek Trail" (sorry, I didn't go so there are no pictures). Padg caught a bunch of fish but also slid pretty far down a steep slope. He escaped mostly uninjured though, thank goodness. I rode up to "Sawmill Canyon" with the guys to watch them gather firewood. It's beautiful up there. And it was fun watching the strong men in action. ;) Jon, Padg and I left one morning and went in search of a new river to fish up high on Sawmill Canyon, but when we finally found it, it was only about a foot wide, so it turned out to be a bust. But it wasn't a complete loss. It was a fun and sometimes scary 4-wheel drive ride up there. And we ended up following a suggested trail high up on the mountain that overlooks our campground (called 30-mile campground). So that was pretty cool, too. Some of the other fun we had included going into town (Creede, Co. www.creede.com) for some shopping (after doing the laundry). There's a store there that has the best fudge you've ever eaten. YUMMY! Creede is about a 45-minute to an hours drive from the campsite. And of course we had to stop at Freeman's General Store for some of the tastiest cheeseburgers and home made ice cream in the world.
Finally, I've got a great video for ya. And there's a story behind it so here goes. One day while eating at the table, Topher leaned over and...well...let's just say he passed gas. We all thought it was pretty funny that he leaned over to do it and so we laughed. Well, he figured out that we were laughing at what he did, so he leaned over and tried to pass more gas. It was priceless. Well a couple of days later he did the same thing while eating with Grandma and Grandpa while Jon, Padg and I were out and about. So Grandpa decided to teach him how to lean over and make a "gass-passing" noise with his mouth. So here's Topher doing his "Grandpa trick"...
And that's about it. The weather was perfect aside from a little rain with slight hail most afternoons around 2pm. A couple of days the rain lasted into the night. But we didn't mind much. It's pretty cool sleeping in a tent and listening to the rain and the fast-flowing creek behind us. It just doesn't get much better.
