Cabin Time and a Hike with a Lounge Chair (June 26th and 27th, 2015)

It is now three weeks until retirement, but who’s counting. Our son-in-law left early Tuesday morning for his officer’s training in Ft. Benning, Georgia. The house is feeling a little empty, and our oldest daughter is really missing her new husband; so this weekend we will be spending a few days at the family cabin in northern Colorado with Steve’s parents. 

I picked up sandwiches for the car ride up, so that as everyone got home on Friday night, we could just eat in the car, and get up there a little earlier. Subway in our area is trialing gluten free bread, so our youngest daughter can actually eat their sandwiches right now. She reported that they sandwich was excellent.  Thank you, Subway!!! 

The sun was going down as we were getting close to the cabin and the wildlife was really moving around.  We saw 12 deer (two of which were fawns with spots), a black bear (very rare to see in Colorado), and a pheasant. Always fun if you keep your eyes open. We ended the night with a relaxing evening with Steve’s parents and the girls.  

Waking up at the cabin is always a treat, listening to the birds chirping, and the stillness of being in the mountains. We enjoyed the morning sitting on the front porch, drinking coffee and waiting for the girls to wake up. After eating some gluten free sour dough pancakes, we all decided to go for a hike. 

We drove a ways up the main highway, to a spot where we could pull out. We weren’t taking a designated trail, so we dropped a pin on Steve’s I-Phone to make sure we could find our way back. The temperature in the mountains this time of year is perfect! The hike was beautiful, through the trees, and over a stream. 

A bear track.  Yikes!

The perfect time of year to see Colorado's State Flower, the Columbine.

A few minute stop for a selfie

And the bonus was that we found a rock that looked like a perfect lounge chair. 

There was even room for one more person.

Our hike was about 3 miles, so it was no problem finding the truck again. When we got back to the cabin, our youngest daughter wanted to go crawdad fishing, so we grabbed the fishing lines and headed over to the lake. We catch crawdads by dangling chicken skin from a fishing pole into the lake. The crawdads live in the rock crevices near the dam. When one grabs onto the chicken skin, we slowly pull it up into a net, and then put it in a bucket of water. The crawdads are small and not really worth eating, so we catch as many as we can, and then let them go on a big rock, and they race back to the water. It’s always fun to see which one can get itself back in the water the quickest. We can usually waste at least a couple of hours fishing for crawdads, so it’s a great way to enjoy an afternoon doing something that you can’t do at home. 

On our way back from the lake, we stopped by the cabin of some of our relatives. They were redoing their deck and stairs, so we stopped and talked for a few minutes, cheered them on and then continued on our way. We didn’t put the fishing gear and bucket away when we got home, so we had some unexpected afternoon entertainment, watching a golden mantel chipmunk trying to get to the chicken skins that were dangling on the side of the bucket. It was quite entertaining! 

We had an early dinner, so the girls could get on their way. They had a going away party for our nephew and his girlfriend that they wanted to attend in Boulder, so they headed out right after dinner. 

We stayed one more night at the cabin, and then headed back home on Sunday. The girls had a great time at their cousin’s party. We spent Sunday getting unpacked, doing laundry and preparing for another week.