Colorado Getaway

We have talked about, planned, and scrubbed multiple attempts at a no-kids getaway for quite a while now.  But on Thursday, September 21st, we found ourselves driving through Logan Canyon in the darkness of 6 am, with our Subaru carseat-less and our kids safe and snug at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  Weird!  That was probably the word we said the most.  Weird to have no one and nothing in the backseat.  Weird to have it so quiet.  Weird to be able to get out of the car and just close the door and walk to wherever we wanted to go and not have to stop to unbuckle anyone or make sure they stayed close in a parking lot, etc.  Weird.  And totally good.

Our first stop was to visit the loo, stretch our legs, get some gas, and grab a bite to eat at Little America in Wyoming.  Lo and behold, a friend from our Vail Ward, who had moved not too long after us, was working behind the counter!  We got to chat with her while our meat, egg and cheese sandwiches were cooked.  And then we hit the road.  We got to Steamboat Springs in time for a yummy lunch at Freshies (thanks to Gregg's co-worker who lives there for the recommendation!).  Gregg had a Rueben with sweet potato fries and I ordered a half-TBLT (turkey, bacon, lettuce and tomato on a croissant) and half-roasted beet salad.  Everything was fabulous.  After lunch we drove the last stretch into Edwards, where after a quick potty break, we drove up to the East Lake Creek Trailhead to hike.  Many of the aspens in the area were turning bright yellow, but there were quite a few that hadn't started to change yet or they were looking dull and faded and like they wouldn't turn bright yellow at all.  The hike to the bridge over the creek was lovely.  The yellow aspens above and the yellow undergrowth below made it feel so bright.  And, due to the lack of chatty (or complainy) children hiking with us, we got to hear the breeze through branches and the rush of the river below.  It felt wonderful to be back in these marvelous Colorado mountains.  By the time we were done hiking, we were pretty hungry, so we called Larkburger and picked up our chicken sandwiches (I know! no burgers? but I had to try the new Chicken Caesar Sandwich).  We ate them by the river in Edwards, like the old days.  And then we checked into our hotel in Avon (the Sheraton - it was fantastic).  After a little facetime session with our hyper kiddos, we soaked it up in the hot tub on the roof before crashing for the night.

He said the Freshies' Rueben is in his Top Five
Ruebens list.  High praise, indeed.

Fall on the East Lake Creek Trail!

 

 

 

   

Eagle River + Lark = heaven.

Hotel tour time.

It was nice!

  

Facetime shenanigans.  They were putting on a play with
Kylie, Michael and Evy, hence all the costuming.

Sam was mostly just running around like a crazy kid.

And Callie was dancing.  I tell ya - hyper!

 

Friday morning we grabbed breakfast (bananas and yogurt) from City Market and ate it in the Walmart parking lot while staring at one of our favorite views.  I dropped Gregg off at his meeting at the Westin (the main point of this trip in the first place).  Then I went shopping.  (Haha - such a Kim thing to do, right?  But remember, I didn't have any kids with me, so shopping felt like a luxury!)  I had a Pier1 gift card that my friend gave me before we moved, but I had never been inside a Pier1 store until Friday.  I ended up using the gift card plus $6 to buy a cute fall wreath to hang in my living room.  Then I hit up the Thrify Shop, where I proceeded to try on pretty much every pair of jeans that was in my size range.  I ended up buying zero of them, but I did get a few pairs of pants for Cal, some sweats for Sam, a handful of books, and some brand new black dress shoes and capris for me.  So, score!  By then it was lunchtime, and I met a few friends, Bobbi, Heather, and Cherish, at Cafe Milano.  (My creamy beet soup (sensing a theme yet?) and crab cake sandwich were fantastic.  I went with Bobbi back to her house afterward, and we took a walk along the Riverwalk with her dog, Lily.  When we were done walking and talking, I had about an hour to spare before Gregg would finish up with his stuff.  I found a comfy chair in the library, with a fabulous view of the trees and mountains, and proceeded to trade off between reading and staring out the window till he was done.  We took a walk up in Beaver Creek Village and then drove to Eagle for dinner at Moe's.  (Poor Gregg had a rather bony fried catfish sandwich (boo!), with sweet potato casserole (tasted like dessert!) and coconut cream pie (second dessert - woo!).  I had smoked turkey, cornbread, boudin balls (amazing!), and banana cream pie.  We love Moe's.)  We drove that night to Fruita where we crashed at the Super 8 (the only thing with vacancies since we took so long to book - we originally thought we'd go home through Vernal, do the temple there, and drive over Guardsman to Solitude to ride the lift and play disc golf, but the cold/rainy/snowy weather had us looking more south for a homeward adventure).

Walmart parking lot views.  Seriously one of my favorites
in the valley.

My mom texted me this pic while I was at the
thrift shop and my heart just about burst!
Can you handle the cuteness?  Gregg told Cal
to take care of her brother right before we left
and it looks like she took that charge to heart.

My library sittin' views.

Beaver Creek walkin' views.

Lookin' down on the village.

We spent Saturday morning driving through and hiking in Canyonlands National Park, with a pit stop at Dead Horse Point for good measure.  The views were fantastic.  The sun felt wonderful.  And we were just soaking in the last few hours of "just us" for a while.  We stopped in Green River for lunch at a Mexican food truck/store located next to the city park.  The food was amazing!  (I got a vampiro, which is a mini quesadilla, with steak and Gregg got chicken tacos, and we both had rice and beans on the side.  Super duper delicious!)  After a couple more quick stops for gas and potty, we finally got to Heather's house in Salt Lake to pick up Gregg's mom's car which had been hanging out there since Grandma Gallagher's funeral when Kim was using it.  Gregg drove that and I drove our car to a church parking lot in Willard, where we parked Kim's car and drove together in our car to Providence to pick up the kids at last.  We finally made it back home to our (freezing 53 degree - I forgot to turn the furnace back on, whoops!) a little before 9:00 pm, tired, but refreshed and happy to be reunited again with our cute kids.

Can you see the dead horse?  Supposedly the white limestone
on the peninsula is sort of weathered into a shape of a horse
lying on its side.  Kinda hard to see here.  But that's what we
learned from a ranger at the overlook.

Bathroom sign that cracked me up.

 

Views from our hike along the Grand View Rim Trail.

 

Views at the end of the trail.

 

The view through Mesa Arch.

Mesa Arch.

 

Making cookies at Grandma's - pretty sure they won't want to
come home with us!

Fitting to end the photos the way we started -
Gregg eating a delicious meal.

It was a fun to miss our kids and have them miss us and to get a little bit of a glimpse of what life was like pre-kids (and, crazy to think about, what it will be like after they grow up and move on to lives of their own!).  Definitely weird.  But definitely good.