Labor Day

With it being a three day weekend and all, we decided to go away for the weekend. Aaron left work a little early on Friday and we packed the car. As soon as we got Campbell from the bus we loaded in the car and headed out of town. We did have to turn back twice to get important things like hiking shoes and Frog and Dog.

Anyway, we went to Glenwood Springs. The drive wasn't too bad. We made it in under 3 hours. We went to our hotel which was really a bed and breakfast inn. The in is at the base of a a ski run. From our window you could see the ski runs. It was a really great place to stay. We spent the rest of the evening just watching tv and letting the kids play in the play room.

We got up early Saturday morning and headed to Marble for a hike. As we entered Marble we saw a huge buck in the middle of the road. He didn't seem to care much about us being there. We made a quick drive through the town of Marble. We even got to see the house where Aaron's grandpa lived. The last time Aaron and I saw the cabin was 10 years ago. We didn't get to go inside (no one was home) but Campbell still found it interesting.

After our little tour of Marble we made our way to the trail head for our hike. We don't have a 4X4 so we had no choice but to hike it. We started with a 1/2 mile uphill hike to the trail head. We were hiking to the Crystal River Mill. From the trailhead it was 4 miles to the mill and 4 miles back. The hike wasn't that difficult and it was certainly beautiful. The trail does allow for 4X4 vehicles, so we had to watch for those along the trail, but we had a great time. The scenery was amazing.

We had our picnic lunch in front of the mill and then headed back up the trail. All in all, the hike took us about 5 1/2 hours and we all did great. We even got to see the little lake where Aaron went fishing with his uncles when he was about Campbell's age. After the hike, we took a drive up to the marble quary, at least as far as we could go. The chunks of marble they bring out of there are incredible.

To end the day, we went to the hot springs in Glenwood. The water in the hot pool was around 104 degrees. The cool pool was about 92 degrees. The hot soak was fabulous after our 9 mile hike. Campbell preferred the cool pool but Caleb and I spent most of our time in the hot pool. We even met up with one of Aaron's co-workers and his family. After the pool we took the kids for some much deserved ice cream.

Sunday mornig we got up and got all of our stuff packed. After breakfast, we checked out of the inn and headed to Aspen. Before leaving town though, we made a short hike up to Doc Holliday's grave site. Campbell loves anything history, so we couldn't skip this one. They have a stone marker next to the grave site stating that they are not exactly sure where in the cemetary Doc Holliday is buried. Aaron found this to be quite funny especially since we had to walk all they way to the back of the cemetary to get to the grave stone. Once we made it to Aspen, we just walked leisurely through town. We did some shopping and had lunch. After lunch we started our drive home.

We went home over Independence Pass. Campbell was very excited to see the Continental Divided at the top of the pass. She also go to see tundra which is what they studied in class last week. Caleb was not thrilled that we woke him up to take him out into the cold air just to look at more mountains. Our last stop was in Silverthorn. We did a little more shopping and then went to dinner. We had a great dinner at a little Italian restaurant. We made it home late in the evening and everyone pretty much went to bed.

Today we all go haircuts and just hung out. We needed the day of relaxation to recover from our weekend of fun. We hope you all had as much fun or your weekend as we did.