Living Up and Loving Colorado

It's a good thing we decided to spend more than one night in Colorado because yesterday was packed with stuff to do.

It started off after breakfast, leaving Black Hawk and driving about a half hour to Idaho Springs to go white water rafting. The drive alone was so breathtaking that we all had an idea that we were in for something special. On our way to Idaho Springs, we drove through Black Hawk and Central City, cute little towns nestled in the Rockies. Idaho Springs was much the same.

We got to our white water rafting place, Liquid Descent, a little before our 11 am start. We knew it was going to be a good time when you see the guides blasting music, dancing, bumping volleyball, and looking like they absolutely love their life. And who could blame them? They get to go rafting down Clear Creek multiple times a day and epitomize the saying, "work should be something you enjoy."

After a few introductory pieces of information and a crash course (no pun intended) on safety, we boarded a bus, drove about 15 minutes and unloaded at a site along Clear Creek. It was then that everybody was grouped together. Fortunately for us, there was only one solo rider and he was placed with another four-person group. That meant the four of us got to ride down together and we'd be the only ones in the raft, along with our guide, of course.

We met Syd, our guide, who was hilarious. She gave us a few tips as well as her commands, we practiced on dry land, and then loaded ourselves into the raft in the water. The water, by the way, was a comfortable 40 degrees as it is all snow melt from the Rockies.

You don't mind the water temperature too much as your adrenaline is pumping pretty hard. Because of the level of the water, we were going over level III and IV rapids.

Throughout the hour and a half long raft down Clear Creek, we rode over waterfalls, multiple rapids (including one backwards because we got spun around), and Cara and I even got to jump into the creek and float down to a rest stop along the way. Jumping into 40 degrees of water did two things: it first took your breath away, literally, and then it refreshed you.

Syd consistently told us we were great paddlers, and we overheard her saying to another guide that she was so thankful to actually have people that knew what to do. This is important to note because of what happened later.

As we approached our final set of rapids, all five of us were having a great time, talking about the rest of our trip, and Syd was even giving us some recommendations about what to do and where to eat in some places that she has already visited. We were no more than 10 minutes from finishing when Cara turns around and yelled, "Syd fell overboard!"

I was able to hoist her back up, and she was thankful and laughing, but also mad at herself. The guides at Liquid Descent have a bet that anytime a guide falls into the water, they have to buy all the other guides beer. We felt bad, but she laughed it off. Her excuse was that she basically felt extremely comfortable because we were good paddlers, and she was into the conversation that she forgot to give us commands and she neglected to guide us away from a rough area of the rapids.

Overall, it was an amazing and unforgettable experience, and we made sure to tip Syd enough to cover the case of beer.

Before leaving Liquid Descent, we all bought ourselves a t-shirt and spent the money on the photos, which gives us all the rights to make copies. It's well worth the $40 that we split anyways.

After white water rafting, the adrenaline was still going pretty strong but so were the hunger cravings. Fortunately for us, there was a free beverage coupon at Liquid Descent to a local restaurant in Idaho Springs called Tommyknockers. So, that worked for us. They had great food and beverage. After lunch, we walked around Idaho Springs a bit and checked out some local shops. It was a cool, small town along Clear Creek in the Rockies.

By the time we got back to Annemarie and Jim's place in Black Hawk, we had just enough time to catch our breath and catch a snack before driving over to Brainard Lake, a lake at 10,300 feet in the heart of the Rockies. Annemarie was nice enough to drive us there for the sunset hike around the lake.

After Brainard Lake, we made a short drive (still in the same park) to the Pawnee/Long Lake trailhead. We hiked over to Long Lake and eventually around it. I've done some hiking before but never anything at 10,000+ feet. You can truly feel the elevation as you breath, but you can also feel the clean, fresh air all around you. And the scenery absolutely makes it worth it.

The whole time, we were all hoping to see some moose around. We were unlucky up until the last half hour of our hike, which is when Ethan spotted a mother and baby moose in the valley. It was a spectacular sight. I didn't have the camera capabilities to zoom in well enough to see them, but Ethan and Lauren did with their camera.

But that wasn't the only moose experience. In the last ten minutes of our hike, Ethan stopped suddenly and pointed into the woods. No more than 20 yards into the woods from the trail was another mother moose. It was giving us the stare down, but we were on pressed time because of the setting sun, so we started moving along the trail. It was then that we saw another baby moose on the trail about 20 yards in front of us. All of our instincts told us not to mess with a mother moose when the baby moose is around.

We decided to backtrack a bit in hopes that mother and baby moose would move on, but that didn't happen. And with the sun quickly setting, we knew we didn't want to be out there in the dark. Our plan? Talk loudly, sing, and just make noise as to not surprise the mother moose and just hope that she'd let us pass.

Fortunately she did, and we made it back to the car as the sunset over the Rockies was taking place. This is the point where I'm running out of adjectives to describe the beauty of Colorado.

But those two mother and baby moose experiences wouldn't be our only this evening. As we were driving out of Brainard Lake, I caught glimpse of a male moose with huge antlers grazing in a field off the road. The lighting was poor and the moose was just a bit too far for me to catch on my phone camera. But I believe Ethan got at least one good one of the moose with his digital camera.

We eventually got back to Black Hawk around 9:30, made ourselves a small snack, and had to say our goodbye to Annemarie because she was working in the morning. Colorado was absolutely stunning, and I'd be lying if I didn't say all four of us didn't spend a few minutes looking up the school districts around here. We all know we'll be back again some time. As Lauren said this morning, "we did Colorado right." We did, and we know there is still so much more to experience in this great state.

Within the next couple of hours, we'll be packing up and taking off for the Arches National Park and then onto the Grand Canyon on Saturday. I can't imagine that service is great in either of those areas, especially data to type up a blog post on my phone. We'll be in San Diego on Sunday evening, so that might be the next post.

Before wrapping this post up, we'd all like to express our thanks to Annemarie and Jim for being fantastic and welcoming hosts!