Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Colorful Colorado


Ahh, vacations!  We just got back from one and I'm dying to write about it!  We went to good ol' Durango, Colorado.  That place is FULL of huge memories for my family.  We would go every summer, at least once, and camp at Hermosa Meadows Camper park.  My mom loved it!  Her mom told her about it, we went, and we were hooked!  As far back as I can remember we went every year!  It got us out of the Arizona Heat and took us to insanely beautiful cool country.  They call it the "Little Switzerland of America."  Some of our memories there are taking the Durango-Silverton Train, fishing, going to see the Bar-D wranglers sing over a chuckwagon dinner, horseback riding and the Polo outlet, oh yes, the Polo outlet!  

While we were there this time, Katie and I enjoyed remembering the good old days.  It didn't matter if we went in a Coleman pop-up trailer or your regular hard top that had the full bathroom hook-ups, (which was awesome), my sisters and I would still emerge from our campsite with perfectly coiffed huge hair, socks that matched the shirt we were wearing, shoulder pads that we passed from outfit to outfit and usually finished it off with a braided belt (remember I'm an 8O's girl!) ready to find the cute boys of Durango.  We totally knew how to camp.  My brother still rolls his eyes about it.

Anyway, this time around we had all our kids, nine in all.  Some had tents, others had Britney Spears' tour bus. . . (Katie) and other stuff in between.  There were no shoulder pads or matching socks, but we all at least got showered every day.  And we had all our awesome spouses to share in the experience of our beloved Durango.  

Some fun things that happened this trip included a raging river raft ride down the Animas river. Aaron had his sunglasses ripped from his face – it was that crazy!  My Avery's arm was savagely sprained after Dave picked her up wrong as she threw a huge fit in a gift shop.  We had to wrap it and sling it so it wouldn't move because it hurt her so much.  We just put her shirt on over it so if you looked at her from her good arm side she looked like she had saggy boobs.  Aaron called her "Hooters."  Nice.  We took crazy Rhino rides up Cunningham Gulch, which is soooo beautiful, and had a picnic.  We camped right next to the raging Animas river with four toddlers...That made for a relaxing vacation.   We rode up to see the train go by in the mornings and smash pennies on the track.  We took the Alpine slide at Purgatory.  The guys went mountain biking.  We ate...  A LOT.  Funnel cakes in Silverton, Mama's Boy Pizza, (twice), free pancakes at breakfast, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory fudge, chubs, chubs chubs.  Anyway, if you want to see proof of our wild vacation, you can see it here. Thanks everyone for such a fabulous, successful camping experience!

3 comments:

Mandee said...

Well, now if that doesn't sound like good times, then I don't know what does! I grew up camping at the beach, but I left my shoulder pads at home. I want to see pictures from back in the day of camping with matching socks.

Nick and Melanie Munns said...

Steph, I still remember going to Durango and Silverton (I was probably about 11 or so) with your family and ours. That was the most beautiful place. We all set our pennies on the railroad and as we took the ride up on the train, Lonnie was there to collect them all for us. That was a very memorable trip for me and the river there was just gorgeous. That is awesome that you guys still go there.

Jennifer Napierski said...

That sounds like a super fun/memorable trip. How fun you all got to go with your own kids. Wish we had family that did anything fun or memorable together. We'll just tag along with you guys next year!