My Life : From Thief River Falls to New Mexico to Colorado and back home again.....

We started the first week of June in Thief River Falls for the MSAA State Target and 50 Meter Shoots. It was a quick trip 6 hour trip up on Friday and back home on Sunday night.

We camped in a small city campground right by the river.

After a getting home late Sunday we spent Monday getting everything ready for a big summer adventure.

We left at 3:45 on Tuesday morning and made it to Dalhart TX where we spent the night. After that we made it to Cedar Crest, NM where we spent five days. We were in NM for the Nation Senior Games that were being held in Albuquerque. We were super glad we chose to stay in Cedar Crest because it was 10-20 degrees cooler then it was in Albuquerque which was in the 90's every day were were there.

We stayed in Turquoise Trail Campgrounds. It was an okay campgrounds. The women that checked us in was super nice and helpful with information about the area. But the campground had A LOT of permanent campers in it. I don't mind that in a campgrounds as long as they are kept up. Some of the campers looked liked they had been there for years and had a lot of junk around them. That being said the campgrounds was very quiet and everyone was nice. I was super annoyed when we left and went to dump our camper and the dump station was not open. We had to go into Albuquerque to dump. But even with those things we had a super fun time while we were there. Our friends Connie and Larry met us and camped with us. We went out to eat at some super great local places.

I already blogged about how good Rick did in the games so I would go over that again but here are a couple pictures.

We decided to drive up to Sandia Crest summit to watch the sunset. The summit is at the elevation of 10678 feet.

It was beautiful beyond words

Rick and I also got to go on a mountain bike trail that was a lot of fun. It was a little above my level of riding but we a ton of fun and we got a good workout in.

Now to the last part of our adventure. We left New Mexico on Monday morning and made our way to Estes Park, Colorado where we met some of our children and grandchildren for an epic adventure.

We really liked the campgrounds and would recommend to anyone going to the area.

Our campsite for the week.

Almost everyday we got to see elk and deer just wonder into the campgrounds. It was so fun to see these massive, beautiful animals just walk around you.

On our first full day we drove up to the top of a mountain in Rocky Mountain Nation Park. We spent most of our days in the park. It was beautiful.

Otis was not impressed

Morgan just wanted to jump off the cliff to get at the chipmunks

The mountains were full of snow. It was pretty cold on the top. We were lucky we went on the day we did because they got a lot more snow after that and actually closed the roads down to it.

Christa and Jese

and

Christa, Jese and Oliver

Liam was happy because he was able to have a snowball fight in June.

After our trip to the top we took a little hike near our campgrounds

When we finished our hike Christa looked up and saw this cloud in the sky. We decided that if the clouds were sending us a heart we must really be in the right place. We loved Colorado.

Sorry for all the wild flower pictures but they were everywhere and so pretty.

Campfire time

We thought we need to do a much longer hike so we all did a 6 mile hike.

We almost turned back after the first hill :) It is was hard for us Minnesota people to breath in the high elevations.

But we made it up the hill and kept going and had a ton of fun.

We discovered that Otis has a mountain peak named after him (well maybe not him but we won't tell him that)

Another day and another couple hike. These hikes were even a little higher and had a lot more water and snow melt.

After a long day of hiking and it is raining out everyone piles into Nana and Grandpas camper for supper.

The next day started out rainy so we went to town in the morning and then Rick, Jese, Liam and I decided to go for a little hike. When we stopped and looked at the map Rick said let's go to Deer Mountain it will be easy.....

Three miles in Minnesota flat is way easier than hiking up three miles in the mountains. But we made it to the summit at an elevation of 10,013 feet.

Either I am really short or Liam is getting taller :)

After our big hike and supper we all went to bed early. It got super cold out and rain and then snowed! We were toasty warm in our camper but everyone else was a little cold in tents. After hearing that it was going to get down to 30 and snow even more we decided to leave a day early.