Share the Adventure: CO Road Trip Day 7

In my research of the best playgrounds along our route, I found several in Denver, so we went to one on the way to Boulder and one on our drive away from Boulder. This was one of our longest travel days, but it started with a bang at Paco Sanchez Park, named for the first Latino radio announcer in Denver.

The central feature of the playground was a huge microphone climbing structure that is hard to explain with words, so here are some pictures:

And here's what it looked like on the inside:

You could even climb on the outside of the tall curly slide!

There were some other neat features outside the microphone, but the boys spent most of their time climbing.

Next was a beautiful drive through the mountains. I debated which route to take, but we ended up staying on I-70 through the Eisenhower Tunnel (longest one I've ever been through!), then taking 91 through Leadville until we got on 160 W near Pagosa Springs.

(this wasn't Eisenhower Tunnel -- you can't see the light at the end of it for a long time!)

Sometimes the boys would throw their stuffed animals up to the dashboard to get to experience something "first"

Our highest mountain pass! My first time driving on this road, I was a twenty-one year old college student (with limited driving experience and zero mountain experience) driving a rental car by myself from Denver to Cortez in a caravan of other YouthWorks teammates. I didn't understand about shifting down (because I never needed to before!) and rode the breaks the entire way down. I knew better this time around!

At the top of the pass was also some information about the Continental Divide. To the west of the divide, water flows into the Pacific; to the east, water flows to the Atlantic.

Runaway truck ramp. Eek! I can't imagine driving an out-of-control semi truck down the mountain.

I love scenic overlooks, but the boys were kind of "over it" by this point!

I had planned to have lunch at a pretty hike with good reviews called Mayflower Gulch, but our GPS didn't lead us to the trailhead, and there wasn't much signage to direct us. We ended up stopping here (Clinton Gulch) and had a short but scenic walk down to the water.

Snow!

Again, they love throwing rocks into water!

It was a little chilly here, so we dug out our sweatshirts (so odd when the rest of the country is experiencing a heat wave!)

More pretty scenery as we head southwest...

Storm rolling in...

Stopping for gas, bathrooms, and a playground in Saguache

We arrived in Mancos pretty late. I had spent the summer of 2006 serving with the mission organization YouthWorks in the small town of Cortez, Colorado. One of the community members I met -- a Vietnam vet named Silver -- became a dear friend that I had kept in touch with all these years later. I had always dreamed of going back to Cortez someday and visiting Silver, who lives in nearby Mancos. The original plan was to stay in his house, but his health has declined significantly in the past few months, and he didn't feel up for hosting us. So, we brought our tent to set up in his backyard. I was planning on staying in the big box tent with the boys, while Amy would have the little dome tent to herself. While we set up, Amy went to pick up some pizza from the local grocery store.

Thankfully, it doesn't get too hot at night in that part of Colorado. There was a chance of rain, but what we didn't account for was the wind. The box structure of the big tent caught all the wind as it whipped back and forth loudly and forcefully. Though I wasn't right next to the wall of the tent, the wind kept forcing it in to hit me. I knew I wouldn't get much sleep, but all four boys eventually fell asleep. Then I checked the hourly weather forecast again. 100% chance of rain in the next hour. And here's our text conversation between tents at 12:34 in the morning:

Step 1: Wake up sleepy, groggy boys

Step 2: Because of our set-up, we had to go through Silver's house (which woke up his dogs)

Step 3: Take out extra STUFF from van (thankfully, we were under a car port)

Step 4: Get boys situated

Step 5: Try to sleep (ha!)

Calvin and Cooper (you can't see him) slept in the back. I sat in that back seat.

Carter and Amy slept in the reclined seats in the front.

Colson was down on the floor behind them

Miracle 1: Everyone got some sleep (I think I may have gotten the least, but surprisingly I wasn't too tired the next day. The Lord sustained me!)

Miracle 2: No one needed a bathroom break (not even me in the middle of a pregnancy. I was pretty much stuck in the back with no way of getting out without waking everyone. I couldn't believe that I never had even the urge to go to the bathroom. The Lord provided!)

Miracle 3: We had enough air flow but didn't have any bugs and didn't get too hot or cold.

Of course, the "100%" chance of thunderstorms turned into basically nothing and basically no rain, but we didn't want to chance it and move them in the middle of the storm. And the wind stayed crazy all night long (we just felt more secure in a van than in a tent!).

The next morning, Amy showed me how she had walked around our tent the night before, tying strings to various trees and fences to try to secure it better.

So, as quickly as we set up our tents the night before, we packed them back up, and I checked for a deal on a hotel in the area for the next two nights.

And that's the saga of our one and only tent experience on this trip!