2020 Road Trip: Vail

We left Moab Saturday morning pretty early and took the scenic route through the La Sal Mountains and up 128. It was a beautiful drive!

Castle Rock from the mountain drive. 

Castle Rock up close. 

We drove around 5 hours to get to Vail, Colorado where we met up with Josh's parents and his cousin Meranda. 

Gore Creek ran right by their condo. We stayed a little further away.

Exploring Vail Village.

Everybody but Barry. 

Couldn't pass up ice cream!

















We took a little walk between Vail Village and Lionshead.







The next morning we went for a hike along Gore Creek.

In the afternoon we headed to Edwards to hike the Berry Creek Trail. It was rated as easy on Alltrails but we begged to differ. Lots of elevation gain and the hike back down was pretty treacherous! It had beautiful views though so I thought it was worth it. 

Finally found a sign marking the trail!









We were supposed to go to an outdoor church after our hike but that didn't work out-we couldn't find it! But we did have a nice picnic dinner before heading back to Vail.

That evening the Smith family joined us in Vail. The kids were beyond excited to be on vacation with their cousins!

Monday morning we went for a walk on the Ten Mile Recreation Path (most people bike it). It was a pretty easy hike, lots uphill in the beginning.

I love wildflowers.

The youngers lounging.

Playing by the creek.

Chad and the kids in the freezing cold creek.









The kids used an old pool float to ride down the "rapids" until they popped it.

Ike after we wiped out.

Ike got stung by a wasp on his lip. Poor fella!

Cousins chilling in the hot tub.















Tuesday morning Josh, Brit, Chad and I took the older kids plus Zac for a hike to see some waterfalls along Gore Creek. We had to hike up into the mountains and it was a great hike!

Ready to roll.

Made it to the creek finally! The water was freezing. It made my feet numb just wading in it for a minute.

Chad and I went down with the kids to where we could get into the creek while Brit and Josh hiked up a little further. Turned out they found a much easier spot to play in. Ha! So we moved up to that area.

It was so pretty and peaceful. Video of the water roaring.

These kids are so cute!

Ike and Brooke went with Josh's parents to the Betty Ford Botanical Garden.













That afternoon we went to Georgetown to ride on an old steam train.

It was so neat driving through the mountains.

Brook and Grandma.

Wednesday morning our family headed back home. The others stayed on to finish out their vacations.

When we were packing up a hummingbird got stuck in our van! It was so hard to get that fella out.

Stayed with Joe and Claudia again. Here's Ike with one of their puppies. He really loves those dogs!













Thursday around dinner time we made it home! We logged over 3500 miles driving on this trip-good thing we love road trips. The kids watched so many movies and Josh and I listened to several really good podcasts (Bear Brook, 1619, and a couple good episodes of Criminal).  Even though we didn't get to go on our original trip (Canadian Rockies, Glacier National Park), we had a blast and the kids really seemed to enjoy everything we did. Here's to the next Bowyer Road Trip!

2020 Road Trip: Around Moab

We spent part of most of our days exploring the area that wasn't part of the national parks. There is so much to do in the Moab area, we could have spent two weeks easily!

Monday afternoon we went to Mill Creek Waterfall, which is just south of Arches and only about 10 minutes from our condo. I figured it would be a good trail to do even when it was hot because most of it was along a creek you could wade in.

At the waterfall. Video of Ike jumping in.

We all walked back along the creek as much as possible. It was crazy hot! Unfortunately for Josh he had to go barefoot because he only had sneakers with him.

My baby boy is looking awfully grown up lately.












Thursday morning we drove the road to Potash, which follows the Colorado River and had beautiful cliffs on one side. We hiked to Corona Arch (we had to right?!) and stopped at some dinosaur prints on the way back.

Found a cairn garden along the hike.

This about did me in. I do not like heights and we had to use this metal rope to climb this part of trail.

Ike cooperated a little better in this one. Video of the kids showing the echo at Corona Arch.

Bowtie Arch. It was right next to the Corona Arch.

From the other side of the arch.










You can get a feel for how big this one was with the rest of the fam under it.

Scaling back down.

Ike's hand vs. the dinosaur print.

View from the hike up to the dinosaur print.










Thursday afternoon we hiked part of the Grandstaff Canyon Trail. I think we went about a mile in and then turned around.







It was another one that you can walk in the creek that runs along the trail. However it had lots of crawdads and I was not a fan of that!













The boys loved the flowing water and made several videos of Dave's Crocs floating down the creek. First video.

Second video of shoe floating.












Giant spider that scared Ike.

Ike got a little too far into the creek to climb back out. Had to back track a touch.

That wraps up our stay in Moab! We absolutely loved this area, it was unlike anything we'd seen before. I can't wait to go back someday, hopefully with more moderate temperatures!