Denver to Fort Collins

We flew to Denver on August 20th and embarked on a 7 day, 2200+ mile trip through Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and little bits of Montana and Idaho.  We have tons of pictures, so we thought it would be nice to share it by day or trip segment. 

We traveled North from Denver, headed west through Boulder, and then up into the Rocky Mountain National Park. As we pulled through the gate, we asked for the best activity to do with kids in one and a half hours (we had dinner plans to return to). The attendant suggested we drive to the visitors center at the top of the Trail Ridge Road. At the peak of the pass, we reached an elevation of 12,183. Since we had just come from Hanover's elevation of 300 feet, we didn't let the kids do much running around. (The last time we took the kids straight from Hanover to the Colorado mountains, Nicholas felt awful. So, we played it safe this time.)

 You can see the Trail Ridge Road in the upper left side of the picture.

 Lily, Donovan, and Nicholas at the Alpine Visitor Center. We were well above the tree line.

 Nicholas, Donovan, and Lily with Doug at the top.

 

A pretty alpine tundra flower. The flowers were very similar to the flowers that we have seen in the Alaskan tundra north of the Brooks Range.

 Bighorn sheep near the road.

 Three rams.

I took many of our pictures from the car window. We were fortunate to get a mini-van and the kids were (for the most part) incredible travelers. Over the course of the trip we probably listened to 17 hours of books on tape (mostly Magic Tree House stories). We also had a few funny songs for the kids to listen to. I caught the pictures below while Nicholas and Donovan were listening to "Don't Put Your Finger Up Your Nose" for the first time. 

 Nicholas

 Donovan

We drove from the park to Fort Collins, CO to visit our friends Jess and Scott. The hit for Lily was that Jess had just found several "princess" dresses. Lily and Sigrid spent the whole evening wearing different dresses and spinning in circles (Click here to see two dizzy, giggling girls.)

 Jess, Sigrid, Aricca, and Lily

 Lily and Sigrid - with their silly faces.

We spent the night with the McArts. Jess had to leave early in the morning for a long trip, but Scott and their girls took us to a wonderful park a few miles from their house. The park had a great playground and very nice waterpark. The kids loved playing there!

 Lily

 Donovan

 Scott and Sigrid

 Scott and Tazlina

 Nicholas

Donovan