Then the fun begins. First we drive right past our road, but that's okay, we wanted to see Winter Park anyways ;), then we found the road only to get lost again by the directions. So we turn around and head in the direction we thought. Turns out we went the right way the first time but the road we needed to take was closed off. Lucky us our GPS was working on the phones so we weaved the back country roads around our road closure only to come to a dead end. THANKS GOOGLE MAPS! You were unhelpful yet again. We ultimately decided that where we neeeded to go was not accessible the way Google maps took us. So instead of driving another hour and a half to get to the right place, we went back to the drawing board and found a new place. Here is where we ended up...
The Vasquez Peak Wilderness! I'd say we did pretty good. So we pitched out tent and set out to explore. We were sitting in a valley so we had plenty of small peaks to choose from for a climb up. We chose one to our north, thinking it was Vasquez Peak. This short 30 min hike was a tough one but we made it only to discover this...
That Vasquez Peak was through the next valley and not where we were :( Oh well, we got to see the Indian Peaks off in the distance where we were about a month ago. So we hiked the ridge we were on for a while and headed back down to camp to rest our feet.
We took in the scenery, let Snyder run around the meadow and made some dinner. Reid had some very cheesy mac n' cheese and I chowed down on some pesto pasta with salmon. YUM!! After dinner we decided to entertain ourselves by tossing rocks at a "target" to see who could hit it first. Sounds lame but it entertained us for a while.
With the sun setting and the temps cooling off, we decided to head into the tent for some sleep. Reid fell asleep just fine, but I suddenly was wide awake and could not fall asleep at all. In the end, I asked if we could pack up camp and head back home so I could sleep in my cozy, comfy bed (I guess I should mention Snyder popped a hole in my sleeping pad so I was basically sleeping on the ground). Reid was on-board so we packed up, started hiking out as the sun was setting and ended the journey out by headlamp. On the way we passed multiple campers who had fires going!! Would be fine and dandy expect Colorado is under a fire ban! Geesh people...
The next day was nice and relaxing! We spent some time at the pool, watched some Olympics and that evening took Snyder on a walk in the Ken Caryl Valley. If you've ever been to Colorado and seen the red rocks area, this vally is very similiar in scenery. Since we went in the late evening, we had the pleasure of seeing some wildlife.
It was a wonderful evening walk and afterwards we enjoyed some good ole burger and fries from Rox's Bar and Grill. We had our order to go and went home to also watch the Seattle Sounders beat the LA Galaxy 4-0!! Unheard of but oh, so happy :)
Reid has one more test this week to take (an ethics exam) and we have plans to go back to our original hike this weekend. Then off to Seattle for work next week for me...
