AND back to Colorado!

We are back in Colorado. Longmont and Boulder area. It’s so great here. Endless things to do and new places to go. Many little, but still big towns real close. We went to Layfette for laundry. If every laundrymat on every town could take notes form them they would all be awesome and have a great, cute, perfect coffee shop next door.

So many breweries to pick from. I think we went to 7.

Smoke has cleared and now we want to explore some hikes and The Flat Irons.

So far the coolest thing we stumbled upon was a creek along a park but along the creek we found a rope swing. Blake and Brayton loved swinging across the creek. Sadly the creek is shallow so it’s not made to jump off or jump across, just swing. It was so fun to see them enjoying that so much. No one minded being in jeans we all ended up in the creek. I couldn’t get more then this one picture because my phone was full and even though I deleted several pictures it only let me take two, but the other was bad.

From Longmont we headed to Frisco and went to Brechenridge, Dillion, and Silverthorne. We found a great bike park with a pump track and good runs that the boys spent hours riding. Showed up the day after the free Gondola to the top at Breck closed but we spent time in the town and tried to be more local then touristy so we went to the library, the parks and more place off the Main Street. We are learning to be fast locals becuase it’s to expensive to be tourists in each town we go to. We are learning that now and having to make choices and decisions to not eat at all the amazing places or get coffee at all the spots or beer at the brewery. Even though that would be so much more fun and enjoyable.

After 3 days of being out of water we had to move out and we traveled to Leadville CO. It’s a huge mining town but super historic and still feels like 1879 which is the building date on the saloon that is still open. So much history and so many beautiful homes and building. I LOVED it there and could move and stay there. We only spend one day there sadly becuase the RV Park, called Sugar Loafin, (fun name) price is $$$.

Currently we are in Buena Vista for the week.

Overall- We have meet so many cool people who are also traveling. We have to learn to be fast friends and hope to meet up again as we all travel on our ways. So thankful for the time we get to spend with those fast friends the share encouragement with.

Sadly no wifi as I update this so I can’t add pictures yet.

9 kids 3 families

Wyoming to Colorado

After our vacation in The Grand Tetons we decided to head to an area where the smoke was not so thick. I know there are a lot of fires, our lovely state (MT) is burning up with the majority of fires near Missoula. The smoke was so thick at the Tetons we couldn’t even see the gigantic mountains from the main road. Also Scott’s back pain had returned and we knew that driving would be rough and slow going again. We also knew that some friends were in Colorado at Fort Collins so we wanted to make our ways towards them and hope it worked to get together.

On our way out of the park we saw a grizzly bear, which was awesome because we decided that a grizzly would be the only animal we would actually pull our whole rig over for. We got out and watched the bear eat for a while and took a few pics. It was pretty cool to be that close ( safe distance still) to an animal so big and powerful.

We made it as far as Rawlings, WY and stayed at a Walmart. I was really bummed that Scott was in pain, we were in a parking lot in a dinky little town on such a special day that I had so many fun ideas for. It was Aveyah’s first Birthday and our 12th anniversary. We made the most of her birthday with a cute outfit, a spoon of whip cream and a cute little pallet garden for some pictures. Instead of dinner our time together Scott took some Ibuprofen and we drove Saratoga WY where Scott had looked up some Hot springs to soak in. It ended up being an amazing place. We camped right next to the lake that was surrounded by reeds which the boys turned into their jungle. The lake had pelicans! I thought those were only at the ocean. The hot springs were HOT and the Lava Pit was about 117 degrees. We hung out in the cooler pool that was about 104. The boys really liked the river that the hot springs drained into. It was the perfect spot to spend hours at. Brayton had a very hard time with the smell and I had a hard time with how slimy everything was and the algae floating and touching me; it was dark and I kept thinking something was on my leg, and I became very itchy.

We talked with one guy that had done a lot of traveling and exploring around the world. He was very encouraging about out whole family being able to travel over seas and how awesome it would be to do that. Scott and I enjoyed talking with him and sharing a lot of stories, faith, and encouragement. Scott went back each day we were there and that guy, Rob, was there every time. They had great talks about faith, life, good times and bad times. It was awesome to see how God can work through pain. Scott’s back pain lead him to search for hot springs and it just so happened that he got encouragement and was encouraging to Robert each time ( random times each day) at the hot springs.

We finally left to head to Fort Collins to see our friends The Gustafson’s. The fun, and short story here is that maybe a year ago, while we were is Spokane, when Aveyah was born, we said we should do a GMR (Gustafson, Mickelson, Rice) reunion in Colorado. At that time we had no plans to be in Colorado so we didn’t plan it more then that at that time. Funny thing is that The Rice’s are also in Colorado doing a back packing trip in Buena Vista. So that day ( Thursday) we were all in Colorado and all headed to Fort Collins to see each other. The reunion was going to happen after all. It was the first time some of us have even meet others kids. David, Micah and their 3 kids stayed with us for 2 nights in our trailer. It was doable with 11 people. We all met up at New Belgium Brewery where we were a crowd of 6 adults and 9 kids who were all 8 and younger. Fun times!!!



Now we are staying at Horsetooth Reservoir while Scott works for the week and we wait for an amazon shipment to arrive. I guess when you live in stick and bricks you take amazon prime and ability to get shipments quickly for granted.

One theme of our trip should be daily thunderstorms. Each day we have had rain, wind and thunder and lighting storms. Some have been pretty crazy but others have just blown over and the sun comes back out. We went to Rocky Mountain National Park and Estes Park. It was beautiful and 12,000 feet.