Colorado - Day 5

Taking a train ride

The train was the perfect size for the boys and went through a miniature western town.

Go-Karts!
And the race is on!


Grandpa and Andrew
Keith and Jonathan


By the last lap, Jonathan had started to slide off his seat. His seat belt wasn't quite his size, but he loved every second of the ride and was very safe with daddy!

Andrew kept telling Grandpa to go faster so they wouldn't "lose the race!"

Having fun at the playground with Grandpa!

Andrew kept telling Grandpa to bounce it higher!

Jonathan loved the little slide

Posing in front of a little cabin at the playground.

This was the view of "Death Mountain" the day after we drove over it. So glad this wasn't the weather we encountered!

After dinner, we went for a drive through Estes to see if we could find some wildlife. We found this herd of elk feeding at a cemetery of all places and this is how close we were to them.

They looked at us, but never were afraid enough of our cameras to run.

On our last day in Colorado, we took in some of Estes Park. Mostly the little shops and then after the boys took a great afternoon nap, we went to a little amusement park. It was perfect for the boys. They had a little train and Go-Karts, which were the real hit of the day. They also had mini-golf, which we decided to skip because you had to play 18 holes and it was close to dinner time. So we went next door to a cute little playground by the marina at Lake Estes.

After using up some extra energy at the playground, we headed to dinner. It was still threatening rain after dinner, so we went for a drive a little ways up the mountain looking for wildlife, and we were not disappointed. When we were starting to give up on seeing any and heading back into town, we came upon a large herd of elk feeding. We drove right up, practically next to them and started taking pictures. It was amazing to see! And I'm sure if we had let the boys out of the car they would've scared off the elk in about 2 seconds!

The next morning we headed for home. I wish I could say the drive was easy and uneventful, but I can't. As we drove out of Estes Park, down the mountain, none of us felt very good. Andrew kept saying his tummy was sick and Jonathan didn't say anything at all. We descended from around 9,000 feet to 5,000 in about a half hour. And all of sudden, Jonathan threw up. We had just reached a little town, so we pulled over and changed him and cleaned up the car the best we could and continued driving. And then somewhere in western Kansas, Andrew got a bloody nose. I tried to stop it by leaning into the backseat, but we once again had to pull over to care for him. We eventually got it stopped and drove the rest of the way without incident. We were very happy to see our house after 10 hours in the car!

All in all, it was a great trip and now the boys judge distance by asking, "Is it as far as Colorado?" And the other day Jonathan asked me while driving if we were still in Kansas? Umm, yes and we will be for quite a while.