Final Thoughts

It's been an amazing trip, and we are so glad we went. Here are some
things we won't soon forget...Mary Grace's love of building fires,
Evelyn washing her baby in the dishwater after cleaning up dinner,
Willa dancing in the neck-deep water at the pool, the chipmunk who
kept visiting ou campsite which the girls named "Camper," bribing all
the girls with lollipops for the whole trip, and waking up all
together in the tent and snuggling together for just a few more
minutes.

The Last Leg

Instead of the mosquito hike on Thurday, we neded up doing a great
hike to a waterfall from the nearby town of Ouray. Mary Grace got to
climb all over it and get nice and wet. We went back to the hot
springs pool one more time and then went fishing one more time (no
luck). It rained that evening so I taught Mary Grace to play UNO in
the tent while Jason made dinner. It dried out enough for Jason to
take Mary Grace on an evening hike where they made up their own
interpretive trail (we have great video of this). Friday morning we
packed up, which sounds quick but actually takes about 3 hours, and
headed to Albuquerque. We found an affordable hotel, had showers and
a nice dinner. We thought about going on to Carlsbad Caverns on
Saturday, but when everyone woke up we were tired and decided to quit
while we're ahead, so we're headed back to Georgetown today.

Thursday

We wanted to start the day with a short hike when the girls were
fresh. We had a nice leisurely morning and Jason got to enjoy his camp
coffee before setting out for the Dallas Creek trail. We seem to do
this on all our camping trips. We find a hike that is clearly marked
and described on the park map, but that no park employee has ever been
on. So we got some vague information about where the trailhead might
be along with a warning about mosquitos. We have battled bugs all
week (Evelyn's face looks like she has chicken pox) so we had plenty
of insect repellant, and felt like we were prepared. We were not.
Have you ever seen those killer bee movies? We were swarmed about 50
feet onto the trail. I have never seen mosquitos like this. They
were all over us despite being coated inbug spray. The trail was
flooded with thick gray muck so we had to turn and run back to the
trailhead to escape. We then went back to the ranger to update her on
the status of her trail.

Grand Mesa

We drove out to Grand Mesa since it was raining back in Ridgway. It
was a beautiful drive through wine and orchard country. We stopped at
a roadside market and bought some fresh homemade salsa (which Jason is
eating now while we're driving back) and some ice cold cider which
we're all looking forward to having with dinner. Grand Mesa is drop
dead beautiful. Mountain lakes everywhere nestled in huge pine and
white aspen forests. We took a short hike around the visitor center
and had a blast learning about the different kinds of trees and making
up funny stories about the lonely forest rangers who keep the place.
We took a scenic drive back on a gravel road that had a stunning view
of the valley below. The girls tolerated the drive well, although I
did have to tell them a couple of times to stop asking when we're
going back to the campsite. When ordered to do so, they dutifully
looked out the window and said "wow."

Wednesday!

We all got up early to go fishing in the ponds behind our campground.
The trout were biting, but I think they might have been some kind og
genetically engineered genius trout because they managed to eat all of
our worms without us catching a single one. Mary Grace was happy,
though, because she got to torture her sisters by dangling wiggly
worms in their faces while they screamed. We went back to the hot
springs pool, and got rained out after about an hour. Bonus though-
we got a free pass to come back the next day. So now we're driving
out to Grand Mesa for some more scenery and maybe some fresh produce
as we drive through Orchard City!