Let’s Go To: Colorado

Let me set the scene, it was Sunday evening & I had a wild hair..my husband was home for the weekend (he had over 2…

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Let me set the scene, it was Sunday evening & I had a wild hair..my husband was home for the weekend (he had over 2 months of working away from us & coming home on the weekends for under 48 hours) & I wanted to spend every bit of time possible together as a family. So on a whim I ran up to him and whisper yelled “Let’s surprise the kids with SNOW!” & he said “Ok”….and then I quickly checked if we could find a decent flight. We DID! And within 24 hours we had our lodging booked too. You know, for the upcoming Friday!!

How We Got There

On a whim & some good fortune we found a flight into Denver on Frontier Airlines. I know I’ve heard my share of stories about them, but I wasn’t expecting much & honestly neither would my kids since they had never flown before.

I personally like the no frills approach to things, pay for what you use & not for what you don’t. All the staff was as nice as can be. Luggage, we paid extra to check bags & with Emily being two we got to bring her car seat plus another necessity (our large hiking carrier) for free.

The kids did AWESOME on the flights, Emily fell asleep near take off on both (a bit of a meltdown before falling asleep on the flight home though) and slept the whole time. Micah was just all around easy as can be, although on the way home before take off he asked “Do you think this plane is going to crash?” very loudly. Uh, I hope not.

Where We Stayed

We stayed in Fraser, CO in hopes that staying in the mountains would increase our snow chances! Spoiler alert: It snowed! So when I chose our cabin it was because it was near an entrance of the Rocky Mountain National Park…well we headed to hike straight after getting off the plane. When it was time to get to the cabin, we realized a small piece of road was closed and would take our 40 minute commute to 2+ hours! YIKES!! And then we slowly drove up the most insane roads up a mountain & then after looking for our cabin for over a hour…WE COULDN’T FIND IT!! I called to get help & well we must have not followed the directions correct because we just couldn’t find the place and ended up staying in a nearby hotel. The next morning we hopped into the car, followed the direction to a T & found the cabin!! YAY! You can see more of where we stayed on this post.

  

 


 


 

What We Did

We hiked in the Rocky Mountain National Park & let me tell you..altitude sickness is a real thing. I’ve experienced it every time we’ve hiked with a major altitude change. My main side effect is swelling, seriously guys…I get Mickey Mouse hands guys! It’s hilarious but I’ve got to remember to take off my wedding ring.

We also hung out in the cabin, cooked cozy foods (chili, pizza, cookies), watched Christmas movies & played in the snow. It was a wonderful low key weekend & since we planned it so quickly we didn’t really have time to plan everything we would do.

Before heading to the airport we decided to go for a last hike before heading home, we found a nearby park and hiked the Turkey Trot Trail combined with the Castle Trails to make a loop with views of Denver on one side, mountains on another and rounding the Red Rocks Amphitheater. It was a surprising hike because All Trails had it rated as an easy…HA! later I noticed MANY comments talking about how this was a moderate to hard trail. It was basically straight up & then straight down with no flat surfaces, which is totally fine but not what I expected at all. It was an amazing hike to finish off our trip.

One comment

  1. Wow! I have never been there and it is so different then we are used to over here in the Netherlands. It looks overwhelming. Very beautiful!

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