Camping Heaven

Pitkin, CO.
Another great camping trip. Pitkin, located near Gunnison, is a small quaint little town in the heart of ATV and beaver pond country. We camped right by the river and were lulled to sleep every night by the rush of the water. It was fishing heaven for miniature brook trout! We fished the beaver ponds to our hearts content and let Jadeyn "throw" the little guys back in to be caught another day. Honestly, we couldn't convince him to let them go gently! One time, he threw the fish so high that it landed on the back of my neck! Luckily, the fishy swam away happily once we got him in the water again!

We took so many adventurous dirt roads. One lead us to an Alpine Tunnel. It is known to be one of the most dangerous railway lines in the United States. They tore out the old railroad tracks and left it as a narrow, one lane dirt road up to the first tunnel. Shear cliffs and boulder fields surrounded us as we bounced along the rocky road. Jadeyn slept soundly but bouncily in the back seat! We stopped for marmots, deer and snowfields and finally explored the old railway station, telegraph building and collapsed tunnel. Wow! Beautiful!



Another road took us over Cumberland Pass at over 12,000 feet to a little town called Tincup for amazing burgers at a quaint joint called Rose's. (how was that for a run-on sentence?) Surrounded by ATV-ers and dirt-bikers, we enjoyed our meal and even got to feed the trout in the pond by the restaurant. At the summit of the pass you could see the near and distant mountain ranges on all sides, a pretty breathtaking view. A few minutes down the other side we picked up a stranded guy who had gotten a flat tire on his truck. The thing is, we didn't see a truck, it was "up a path a ways." So he hops in our truck, we bounce along a trail a ways, he moves a fallen pine tree out of the way so we can pass, we go further, then sure enough: there was his truck. It was the perfect set up for a murder mystery! Very nice guy though who entertained us all the way back to Pitkin and even invited us to stay in his cabin whenever we would like to!

I can't begin to explain how perfect our camp trips are. Being out in the wilderness, in the trees, rushing water, cool breeze, warm sleeping bags, happy little boy and content husband! Its heaven!

We can't seem to be able to teach Jadeyn what "gentle" means whether its giving soft hugs or releasing a fish back to the water. Here is how he "tossed" every brook trout that we caught: very gently!!!!

Messy Eater

Julie is here!!!

The Morgans - - - Julie's Family!

Julie's family came to visit!!!! On their way to a family vacation in Missouri, Julie and her family dropped by for three whole days ! We were so excited to have them come and enjoyed every second of it! Jadeyn fell in love with all his cousins right off the bat and romped and played to his heart's content. Us adults stayed up too late talking each night which is completely unavoidable and had a wonderful time catching up.
The highlights of their days with us were The Butterfly Pavilion, swimming at the Rec Center, playing in the pack and altogether having a blast.

At the Butterfly Pavilion the Morgan girls wowed the crowd and the workers with their knowledge of camouflage and butterfly life cycles. I guess it really helps having a vet for a dad! We all loved the butterflies and the lovely humidity in the enclosure.







Everyone was dripping wet by the time it was ready to go, but the Morgans felt right at home, like they were back in Grenada! Jadeyn, not having had a nap yet, only threw one small fatigued tantrum and I was happy to get a picture of it!!









At the rec Center, Jadeyn and I tried to keep up with his "fish" cousins who were practically raised in the water! We went down the slides, tried out the lazy river, enjoyed the hot tub and played with all the other water features. Later on, Jared and the two older girls went back to climb the rock wall.
I love my sister and was so happy that she took the time on their trip to come and see us!

Spruce Grove Campground

Anyone who has ever set up a campsite will empathize with our weekend. We left quite early on Friday morning to make it to the campground by 9:30 to have our pick of the non-reserved sites. There were two by the river that we really liked and picked one of the walk in sites. Unloaded the car, set up the tent, sleeping bags and mats, pack'n'play, BBQ, woodpile, etc, then went fishing. Around 3:30 in the afternoon, we see the camp host put a card on the post at the end of our site and then leave. Humm? We look, the sign said our camp was reserved for the whole weekend and the name on the card wasn't ours! What? After a very lengthy conversation once we tracked down the campsite, it was determined that a "computer glitch" (or a negligent camp host) caused the error and we had to move. There is nothing more exhausting than hiking all your gear to a walk in site, setting everything up, only to have to pack it all back up, unto the car, across the campground, up to another site and set up again! Oh well, at least we got our exercise. And, Kevin lost his new pocket knife along the way!! Okay, enough of the venting, on to the trip!

The description in the camping book was very accurate: a wonderland surrounded by dinosaur egg-sized boulders! The rock formations were awesome!! The "creek" was really a very swift river with lots of nice fishing holes amongst the boulders. Jadeyn loved his new life jacket and refused to take it off a few times. We figures around a lake he is pretty safe with us, but the swift river made us a bit nervous. Most of the fish we caught were Brown Trout which are always fun and elusive to catch!

We rook a nice drive up a winding canyon to see what it had to offer. Despite being extremely over-crowded with vacationers, fishermen, waders, and people in general, it was beautiful. We found a nice place to dunk a work and played in the mud for a few hours.



One of the cutest moments with Jadeyn was when he planted himself perfectly on a large boulder and it would have made the sweetest picture. So we tried to get him to smile on demand (not an easy task!) by telling him to say "cheese!" Didn't work. Say "fish!" Didn't work either. Say "worm!" Nothing. We gave up, and all of the sudden he started hollering "Cheese! Fish Worm!" over and over again!!

Even while camping, you can still look beautiful, right? Here is Jadeyn combing his golden locks!

Despite the chaos, we had a wonderful time. We even found Kevin's pocket knife!

Memorial Day Festivities

Fishing Heaven! We headed out to Doudy Lake to camp Thursday night and arrived to find a beautiful, peaceful lake, practically all to ourselves! Our campsite was the closest to the lake as we could get: a peaceful alcove about 100 feet from the shore. Jadeyn was so excited to be camping again, his little feet ran as fast as they could to the lake, stopping only a few times to make sure we were coming too! The whole lake heard him coming and continued to hear him throughout the day!


The fishing was spectacular. We had fished at a nearby lake a few weekends ago and had fun, but these fish were a very nice size!! We caught rainbow trout, lake trout, brook trout, sucker-fish (which Kevin hates so much he refused to touch them as we got the hooks out) a pine cone, a tennis ball! and quite a few crawdads!! It was so fun to watch Jadeyn's delight with each fish and to watch him imitate us while he was fishing. He'd get all excited, yell "got fish!" start reeling in, then suddenly go "aww. dang!" as if his fish got away!
Camp good was excellent as usual: T-bone steak, potatoes, soda, hotdogs and s'mores!


Jadeyn was very proud of his catch of the day. Little did he realize that his prize could splash back!

We decided to cut our trip a little short since Kevin's parents had decided not to come after all, so we headed out to Wyoming for a little target practice. We drove to Kevin's parents home for a visit and let Jadeyn terrorize their house. I felt bad because we had to move so many breakable decorations up a few feet, but once those were clear he was free to tear around with Grandpa Cottrell and squeal to his hearts content.




We spend Saturday with Grandma Pete (Kevin's grandma) and went to the Evanston cemetary to put flowers on several family members graves and to hear stories about them. Lunch and some gardening with Grandma Pete as well. We even rescued a snake from her yard that had been plaguing her since last year. Jadeyn was a little unsure of the snake at first and then it was all he could talk about when we were outside.








I finally got to shoot my gun! Kevin brought his 40 and I took my 9 out to the green hills so see how good we were. Kevin, of course, was dead on with the 40 and still loves it the best. I didn't do so well at the beginning with mine while I was getting used to it. Once I figured out/remembered to only squeeze the trigger, I was much better. We left the shotgun and rifle that my dad gave me at home and are very excited to try it out over the 4th of July!


All in all, it was a very full weekend when we look back over it. Lots of fun to see family, play on the swingset and trampoline, cook up a few beautiful steaks, spend time with Grandma Pete, catch a few fish and just generally enjoy ourselves!