Thursday, June 27, 2013

June 13-17: Colorado Trip

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how S and I were planning to visit New England so she could visit with her birthmother and we could see some of our friends who still live there.  Well, plans changed and after S left, we didn't have a lot of motivation for me to go off to New England alone.

So instead, we decided to use the prearranged days off for a little family trip, which included our friends, KF, AF and SF, as well as AF's good friend, AB.  There were ten of us in all and so we rented a roomy condo just north of Durango, Colorado and spent a long weekend up there together.

This was our first family trip without a member of our family, but overall, we had a good break from the day-to-day and the summer heat of New Mexico.  It's beautiful up in Colorado and even though I much prefer the coast to the mountains, from where we are, the mountains are a lot more convenient.  So I'll take it!

I wanted to share a few of my favorite scenic shots from the trip.  I hope you won't mind...

That's our condo on the left there and all of us spent abundant time on the large deck, enjoying the scenery.

Wildflowers coated just about every open space we encountered in Colorado, but most prolific were the dandelions!

I'm not sure what these were, but we kept seeing the little pods and finally, KF spotted this one beginning to open.

Many of the dandelions were XL!

I took this on an evening walk near the condo.

This one, too.

Sunset our final evening.

We didn't ride the train in either Durango or Silverton, but it is a big feature there so we saw many of them while we were out and about.

Our big adventure was white water rafting in the Animas River.  C and I have been before, but it was a first for the kids.

It was a great time for all!  Watch the video below for a little sample of our nearly four-hour journey.


P.S. Happy Birthday to my mom earlier this week and to my sister-in-law, AA, today!  I'm behind on many things -- but know that you were on my mind this week as you celebrate.

9 comments:

  1. YES I MIND!

    Nice photos. I see you're watermarking. :) And doing a few other things to your photos--cool!

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  2. Yeah, I learned how to watermark when I posted SO's senior portraits. I'm not sure when I should or shouldn't, but figured I might as well since I know the trick now. Ha.

    Doing a few "other things"?? For better or worse?

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  3. Did I not say "cool" at the end of the "other things" comment?

    I put mine more to guide people back to my blog than because I'm afraid of stealing. Especially with Pinterest and everything, photos get kind of separated from the source a lot and it's nice to have an address.

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    1. You did say "cool," but I guess I didn't really know what you meant by other things ... so then I second-guessed it.

      Good point on the photos getting posted elsewhere thing. Never thought of that!

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  4. I thought those flowers were dandelions! Funny how on your other photos a sign said "Do not pick flowers, we have seeds inside" Like I would want dandelion seeds. Is that orange/red flower budding out a Norfolk Poppy?

    So glad you had an enjoyable break.

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    1. The ones on Instagram with the sign were actually not dandelions. I don't know what they were ... imposters, I guess, because they were practically the same color.

      I don't know if the budding one is a Norfolk Poppy -- your guess is better than mine! :)

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  5. Water marks are always good...so no one can steal ur pix and call them theirs....cool video :)

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  6. Loved the pictures of everyone! Looks like you had a grand time...beautiful:)

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  7. Thanks for all the comments everyone!

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