Weekend Getaway

We had a great weekend despite the rain, snow, and camper leakage, all of which I will go into later in the post! I will start out by saying that the reason for our trip was to see one of our favorite bands, Mumford and Sons, play at the Telluride Bluegrass festival. Since we were headed to the western slope (that what we call the western side of the mountains) we decided that we could get a few other things in on the trip too. We have been wanting to go to the Montrose/Grand Junction area to visit the wineries, so that is how we started our trip.

This is Hannah about halfway into the trip with what I like to call her "chili cheese frito face." The kid loves chili cheese fritos and seriously ate them by the hand fulls. She kept saying, "more! more peas!" I guess that a part of the reason is because we don't usually keep stuff like that around the house and use camping/road trips as an excuse to indulge. Now keep in mind though, this cannot be your plain ole' frito like a normal person...no, chili cheese are the only ones that will do! She gets that from her Dad because I can barely stand the smell of those things!

We were originally going to stay the first night in Montrose, but changed our minds at the last minute. We had plans to visit some family friends in Grand Junction, so we just went there instead...got to take I-70 which is a beautiful drive through the heart of the Rocky Mountains, and got to see the "stripe-id" mountains as we approached western Colorado. The Colorado river flows through there and it was amazingly full. The crazy rapids and waves kept us all occupied for most of the trip! We stayed at a hotel that night. When we arrived, Hannah rushed over to the fountain that was outside of the hotel.

She loves water and fountains and sinks and basically anything that can be played in, so it was no surprise that she sat right down to play in the fountain every time we were outside!

Hotels...ah the beauty of a cheap, pricelined, hotel! It is pure delight for all and Hannah was no exception. After being cooped up in the car for five hours, of course the first thing one must do when arriving at a hotel is jump on the bed! And that's exactly what she did for about two seconds until Jon showed her something even cooler than "bed jumping!" That would be "bed-throwing!" This involves piling all of the nice, fluffy pillows provided by the hotel into a large stack in the middle of the bed. Then the thrower (aka Mom or Dad) picks Hannah up and flings her into the large pile of pillows. Squeals of delight, giggling, and unrelenting requests for "more" are sure to follow. I think Hannah got thrown onto the bed at least 20 times while we were at the hotel. Twenty is a lot considering she spent half of the time in the bathtub...her other favorite hotel room hobby!

She also spent quite a bit of time on the telephone. Apparently she had a lot of stuff to tell a lot of people because she jabbered away. What's amazes me every time is that she knows that this is a phone...Jon and I only have cell phones, so we do not have anything that looks like this in our house and the most of our family members (who's houses she has spent time in) have cordless phones or cell phones. There is no good reason for her to think that is a phone, but she does.

We unplugged the phone from the wall because we knew that Hannah would not be able to resist making at least a few phone calls, plus we figured the people at the front desk were probably not going to be very interested in what she had to say! Of course this was great for her since it meant that she could now move about the room...and also get in a "bed throw" every now and again.

We closed the dark blinds and slept in as late as Hannah would allow us to, which was about 8:30 or 9:00. Then we headed out in search of breakfast and good strong coffee before hitting the wineries. One thing that I love about Grand Junction is that EVERYTHING seems to grow there! They have cherries, apricots, peaches, grapes, asparagus...you name it and it probably grows. Being that the ground is so fertile, flowers also grow amazingly well there. There were roses everywhere and I LOVE to "stop and smell the roses" whenever an opportunity presents itself. I sniffed away at many flowers over the weekend and thoroughly enjoyed seeing all of the colors!

One of the wineries that we went to had a huge horse and chicken made out of various car parts (there is an artist that does stuff like this in GJ--we have seen some of his other work around town). Hannah could barely contain herself and was desperate to ride the horse and see her chicken! We met up with some family friends that Jon's family knew in Farmington, Nancy and Randy, for a late lunch but I forgot to take a picture. It was good to see them and get caught up on life! We left after that and headed to Ridgeway State park for the rest of the weekend.

We set up camp quickly and went for a little hike to check the place out. There were a couple of ponds that are stocked with fish, but are right next to a beautiful river. These were all within a stones throw of our camp site...we loved it!

There was a bridge that crossed the river and then led into the hiking trails. Hannah was a big fan of the river and looking over the bridge to see the water.

So much so that I could not get her to turn around for a picture! I had to give her a little swing just to get her to smile for the camera for two seconds!

As we were walking back to our camp site, we walked past a young kid catching a fish. We found out that he and his family were from California. They were very nice people and the dad humored Hannah's obsession with fish. He let her look at it and pet it and he even let her "help" him put it back in the water. It was so cute because you could tell she really loved the fish...as the guy reached into his bucket to pick the fish up Hannah said (as clear as day and in such a sweet little voice), "don't hurt the fish!" She spoke so clearly that the guy immediately responded that he wouldn't and had no idea that she hadn't said that phrase before. It was such a sweet and tender moment for her...then she took the fish, with the complete stranger, and let it back into the water! It was so stinkin cute! Jon joked that it was going to be a rude awakening for her when she sees what happens to the fish that are big enough to keep! Life lessons are hard kid!

Our river view from the camper.

Between the gigantic sand box (also known as a place to set up one's tent) and the camper, Hannah thoroughly entertained herself for the evening. Jon and I just got to relax by the fire because Hannah thought she was big time because we let her go into the camper alone! Every once in a while we would hear a knock knock..."open da door!" She didn't know how to get out, although she could get in!

This is Jon's unhappy face...can you tell?? He was not happy about my ridiculously awesome marshmallows that I purchased for s'mores! You see he's not really a s'more kind of guy...he just prefers to eat roasted marshmallows without the chocolate and graham cracker...that's gotta be a sin right? Anyway, I bought the giant marshmallows that have been out lately...you may have seen them in the seasonal isle at the grocery store. They are amazing! Seriously, they are like 2-3 marshmallows in one...perfect size for a s'more...and they melt beautifully from the inside out...golden brown on the outside...mmm...I am taken back just thinking of them! Really, I don't know if I have ever had a s'more so delicious! Jon would not agree though...he says they are too gooey and that he can't go back and re-toast the inside. After all of the complaining, I swore that I wouldn't buy the big ones again, despite how ooey-gooey and delicious they are! What I might end up doing it getting two bags of marshmallows because I don't know if I can totally sacrifice the perfect s'more! We'll see if my conscious gets to be between now and the next time we camp!

A little pre-bed time sillyness!

The night was perfect...not too cold but certainly not too warm. It was a one blanket kind of night which is perfect to me!

We woke up and headed scarfed down some breakfast before heading for Telluride. It is about 35 miles from where we camped and it was probably the prettiest 35 miles I have seen in Colorado. If you get a chance to go to Telluride, I would highly recommend it...it is beautiful!

This is Mt. Wilson. One of Jon's bosses told Jon that this is the most photographed mountain in Colorado. He told him to just look for the fence and then you will know...and now we know. Beautiful! Absolutely beautiful! Jon did a really great job taking the picture too! I am thinking about getting a print of that for somewhere in our house! The mountains were covered in Aspens unlike any other mountains I have seen and as a special bonus, the wildflowers were in full bloom!

Parked and ready to hit the slopes...I mean go to the festival! Telluride is a ski town, so visitors park at the top of the mountain, near the ski area and ride the gondola down to the town...two gondolas and about 14 minutes later we arrived in town. I am completely in love the Telluride's public transportation...a free gondola for getting around?? Seriously??

Jammin out to some good ole' music at the festival! Hannah was singing and dancing from the moment we put her down on the ground. It was too stinking cute!

Of course she always has time to play with her daddy! When we entered the festival a lady asked me, "what's the first thing you said this morning??" I looked at her kind of lost while trying to think of what I said...she answered her own question with, "Happy Father's day??" I completely forgot that it was father's day and said that actually, I think it was something along the lines of "I have to pee!" Overall I think it was a pretty stellar father's day for Jon, although we could have done without the rain and snow!

It was kind of cloudy when we arrived and it was pretty close to Hannah's nap time. She fell asleep after eating some lunch and snoozed on the ground for at least an hour! I decided to make the 30 minute trip each way back to the car to get some blankets just in case. I loved riding on the gondola again and getting to talk to people and hear their stories!

This is the view from the top...amazing! We were at the Bluegrass festival specifically to see Mumford and Sons, although we really enjoyed several of the other performers. The sun came out for a while and it was fabulous! After a couple of hours of sun, a fierce wind started blowing...a wind like the wind that happens at the beginning of a cold front...we didn't really think about it, although we knew that we were not prepared for the rain or cold. This was our first time to go to the festival and it was also our first time in Telluride. We didn't know how much stuff we could bring in, so we opted for less instead of more. That was a big mistake! It got cold and then started raining. We can handle a little rain, so we were in good spirits still. Jon even ran into someone he knew. We talked with them a while, drank some hot chocolate and hoped that the rain would stop. It didn't...it got worse!

It began pouring down rain! This all started around five-ish, and Mumford and Sons wasn't even going to start playing until 7:30! A guy in front of us offered us, crazy, short wearing people, with a small kid, his umbrella. We had picked up some beach chairs on our way back to the festival after dinner, so we were sitting in those, while trying to stay dry with the use of our super generous neighbor's umbrella! We waited...and it rained...and we waited some more. Hannah fell asleep for a while, so we waited a little more...and finally, when it started snowing, we decided that we could not wait any longer. We stayed until about 7:00, but we just couldn't stand to wait any more...we decided that we could catch Mumford and Sons the next time they are around...probably this time next year at the latest...and we packed up, gave the umbrella back, and headed back to our car. Fortunately the local radio station was running a live broadcast of the festival music, so listened to the whole concert from our car...while it the snow/rain mix continued to fall...I kept thinking that at any moment the clouds would break and the sun would peek through...it finally did about five minutes before Mumford and Sons finished their set.

And this is what we saw as the sun was setting...snow! And lots of it! It poured down snow in the mountains surrounding us...there was definitately no rain mixed in with that stuff! The mountains were white...and so beautiful. Despite how gorgeous it was, I can now say that I have seen snow in June and do not ever care to see it again!

When we got to our car it was 37 degrees out with this rain/snow mix falling! I am pretty sure that I was a lot happier to be listening in our car than to be listening at the festival. I have never been SO cold...cold and wet through and through is a bad combination! Once the concert was over, we drove back to our camp site to find a new disaster...our camper leaked with all of the rain! Fortunately it was just in a couple of places and didn't get too many of our blankets wet! It rained all night...and I went back and forth between being completely relaxed by the rain to stressed out that it was raining inside of our camper! Despite it all, I was mostly relaxed and very happy to be home!

One last wristband shot! Bluegrass power! My car still smells, and I am pretty sure that it is going to need a serious detail before long...but hey, we made some memories that will certainly last a lifetime...and we, perhaps, began a yearly Haddenham tradition!