Category Archives: Fun

Best of Southern Colorado: Cave of the Winds, Garden of the Gods, Royal Gorge

We had a great time in Colorado and while we were there we took the extra effort to go down south to the Colorado Springs area. This is about a 2 hour drive from where we were staying in Greeley, so it was worth it to book a night in a hotel so we could spend more time touristing around. We had two things on our mind to see: The Garden of the Gods and the Royal Gorge. We ended up seeing three because we also saw the Cave of the Winds. All of these I highly recommend if you are in the southern Colorado region. The landscape changes to be a little drier the further south you go and more and more juniper bushes become interspersed throughout the red rocky area.

Waiting to see the Cave of the Winds. Tickets were about $20 each but Aeden (children under 5 I think) was free

My mom and her first, and so far only, grandbaby

A lot of dinosaur fossils are found in this area so there are some museums and places that showcase it

The canyons in this area are insane!

When we first arrived to Colorado Springs!

The train was a huge part of how “the west was won”

We carried Aeden through some tight spots and steep stairs in this cool cave

Colorado flag flying proud. The yellow circle in the center of the C represents the sun

Fun in the Cave of the Winds

A fun cave with tight spots, but easy enough to do holding a baby

He seemed to enjoy it too!

While we waited for the tour I tried out my spelunking skills -haha

After the tour there was a beautiful rainbow over the canyons

Look! We caught a leprechaun at the end of a rainbow 🙂

So many photo ops!

On the drive back to the hotel from the cave we checked out the Garden of the Gods! So incredible and always FREE! This was the balance rock area

Such incredible formations!

Love these impressive backdrops!

Say cheese!

The next day we drove another hour to Canon City to see the Royal Gorge. We were there at the right place and time because it is normally $28 to cross

The ziplines and gondolas looked fun, but we just walked it

Tourist pose at the top checking out the HUGE suspension bridge we would be walking across

Fun with my mom. It was pretty cool, but wouldn’t be worth $28 just to cross in my opinion

On the other side of the bridge

There’s only so much you can do on a bridge, so I did a bridge! 🙂

Walking the 1/4 mile across and back

I looked for the PR flag, but there were only state flags there

Lookout point!

Overall we had a great time in southern Colorado!

What a beautiful piece of country!

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Quick Stop in Boulder, Colorado

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Family fun in Boulder, CO

While we were in Colorado we wanted to take a quick jaunt into Boulder. It’s such a fun town to visit and while the drive was much longer than we remembered (Britton used to drive this route EVERY day to work), it was nice once we got Aeden’s belly all filled up (that kid can eat!). We enjoyed walking around Pearl Street, watching the street performers and grabbing a nice sweet treat.

When walking on rainbows is not strange at all!

And the flipflops are HUGE! 🙂

Fun in the fountains

Yum! I scream for ice cream!

Where the buffaloes roam (or are at least in bronze)

Colorful Pearl Street

Loved all the potted flowers! They even had some tropicals planted for the summer

Later we took a little side road to enjoy the Boulder countryside

Overall, it was a fun quick day trip visiting Boulder.

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Red Rocks on the 4th of July

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We had always wanted to see a show at Red Rocks Amphitheater on the 4th of July, and so with this vacation we made it happen. Blues Traveler has been playing there on Independence Day for about a decade now and we had always heard great things about it. Our show lived up to the hype even though you could tell they were a little used to playing there and had a lot of the opening bands play with them. Blues Traveler put on a decent show, but the real star of course is the location itself. Nestled between two huge triangular red boulders, Red Rocks is a natural wonder. I am generally not into concerts because they tend to be really expensive and indoor venues just never do justice to the music. But Red Rocks is special even to musicians. You just aren’t a “true” star until you’ve played there and been listed on their museum wall.

The rock formations are out of this world!

We took advantage of our family’s offers of free babysitting to go out to this concert. We were expecting a great show, but what we didn’t expect was a lightning show, rainbows and all the fireworks shows that lit up the whole Denver area. It starting raining in the middle of the show, but it cleared out half the crowd which made the rest of the performance all-the-better. The firework show put on by Bandimere Speedway was the best and it was so interesting to watch the displays from above instead of below. We loved our time at Red Rocks and encourage anyone who loves the outdoors and music to go (hint: pack some snacks and expect some outrageous prices at the concession stands). Here’s a little from our time with our niece and her boyfriend at Red Rocks.

With Summer in the summer of Colorado

Britton and his niece with an impressive rock formation

You could see Denver in the distance

And rainbows forming over it

We took the long way to the amphitheater and saw deer on the hike

And a bear (haha)

Our group at the concert

Fireworks going off as Blues Traveler played

Such beautiful countryside!

Here’s a little video of our time at Red Rocks:

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New Flowers and Friends

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Newest bloom: Evita’s Rose

We are constantly on the lookout for new plants, trees and flowers. It seems that most of the viveros have all the same common plants: trinitarias, hibiscus, bromelias, orchids, citrus, avocados. What they don’t have are heliconias, gingers, plumerias and all the exotic fruit trees. We are currently on the lookout for durian, Australian finger lime, and reina de las flores (this is a common tree, but for some reason we have a hard time finding it for sale).

Also looking for Rainbow Eucalyptus like this one seen on the side of the road

At the last pulguero in San Sebastian we had a good score! We found another Ylang Ylang tree (the fragrance is so divine, it is used in Chanel No 5), an achiote tree (a natural food dye for the color red and very cool looking fruit), a huge Tibochino espiga and a Raffy palm (that’s what the vendor called it). At Jardines Eneida we also found some new trees like a Cordia, Saman and mamayito (lemon drop mangosteen).

The meadow area after a good mow -we need to mow about every 2 weeks now that it’s raining so much

I also found this nepenthes pitcher plant that reminded me of well…you know

All the rain has brought out the mushrooms

And so we bought some garden art to commemorate them

Rainy days at the cabin. Notice the new railings!

Still not sure if we want to put rails on the bridge though

The mosquitos come out a lot more in the rain, so we put a mosquito net on Aeden’s play pen outside, that he promptly pulled down 🙂

He’s our little farmer so we did an impromtu photo shoot with him

Our little red is getting so big! 9 months now

Aeden’s 9 month video update

In order to find the heliconias and ginger varieties we want, we have to find direct vendors. The rhizomes don’t do super well in pots for long periods of time, so they have to be directly transplanted as soon as possible into the ground. They also need a lot of space and water, that the average home gardener can’t often provide (hence why they are not commonly found in the stores around here). Well, I found someone online who specializes in them! Not only did Carlos sell us some amazing rhizomes, he also delivered them from San German and helped us identify many of our wild species. We hung out for quite a while and got to know him pretty well. We scored some plants, but even more importantly a new friend who is as geeked out about botanicals as we are! He is a student at the University in Mayaguez and knows a TON about plants.

With Carlos and the new plants