Reddiker Woodes

I've Been Published

I had totally forgotten that the Schamp Denver Guide had gotten in touch with me before the wedding and wanted one of our state park pictures for their upcoming edition.  Schamp is an online travel guide for Denver and the surrounding areas.  One of my Roxborough State Park pictures was chosen.  You can go here to see the entire guide and my picture, and you can see our entire trip here.

labor Day Weekend 3

On Sunday we went to Barr Lake State Park.  Little Man had his passport from our first park hike, and he actually picked this one.  We'll never let him pick a park again.  I say this because although it's a beautiful park, we didn't realize when we started on the hike that it was going to take almost five hours and nine miles to complete.  But WOW, what a fun day we had.  We started with Little Man and his swimming class, went out for brunch at the Grande Luxe, then up to the lake.  With the amount of food we ate at brunch we figured we'd walk some of it off.  HA HA HA HA, FireHoth and I both lost 1.5 pounds, and god only knows what Little Man lost.  He didn't loose his cool though.  He stuck out the entire walk with us, and only had to be carried about a mile total, off and on.  Daddy had him a couple of times and I had him a couple of times.  He got to see all kinds of wildlife on this hike, and this will be his longest that he's ever done.

Beginning of trail and both daddy and Little Man pack their own bags.

   

The scenery was just beautiful.  Peaceful, quite and the day was cool and overcast.

   

   

Not sure which mile marker this was but he was still doing good.

   

Daddy explaining just how far the truck is.

Finally at the lake itself.

On one side of the dam, have to go all the way to the other side.  From here, we actually thought we could do it in about an hour. :)

Little Man got a chance to see not one, not two, but three trains, up close and personal.  Even got a chance to wave to the conductors.  We should've bought some pennies with us.

Now he starts to loose his mind and wonders when he'll see the truck again.

   

I got to carry him for about 15 minutes.  He's a lot lighter this way than any other, and he was able to see over the preserve.

   

This is the other side of the dam from the above pictures.  This was about three hours to get to this side.

Then finally around 4:30PM the sun came out and was at our backs and just lit up the woods.

   

And for all of his hard work, and hardly any complaining, he got for the first time ever, Ice Cream for dinner.  He was so excited.  The hour car trip back down to home, we thought he would fall asleep, but he kept reminding us about ice cream for dinner.  I'm so proud of him.  I don't think he'll ever say "mommy I'm bored" :)

Labor Day Weekend 1

Wow, this was a busy weekend for us.  WE actually thought we could do three parks in three days, but wound up doing two parks, and one museum which was even better.  Our first park for the weekend was Cherry Creek State Park.  Nice and warm out and a perfect day for it on Saturday.  I even took JoAnna out for one of her first times outdoors.  Little Man got kissed and licked by several puppies who were also out and swimming.

Since FireHoth has been doing scale models, we went over to Lowry Air Force Base to the Wings of the Rockies museum.  It's so funny, I've been here most of my life, and had never gotten a chance to get a picture of the bomber that sits on site.  It's so sad that the base isn't there anymore, and that it only has the two hangers for the most part as a remembrance. But I'll make sure that Little Man knows the heritage of the base and why it was here.  He had a blast walking around, checking out all of the planes and all of the memorabilia and daddy teaching him everything.  More of the beautiful planes can be seen here.

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

State Park Number 3

Little Man actually picked out Castlewood Canyon, and he did a pretty good job by looking through his passport book.  Half cement trail, half not, and the half that isn't is just breathtaking.  Little jagged, but very pretty.

  

  

  

  

New Weekend, New State Park

Now I know why I never liked Chatfield State Park. It's not a park, is a friggen boat dock. How in the world they got the title "state park" is beyond me.  I guess it must be from the amount of land that is there. Most parks that we've gone to, actually have a visitors center, some place you can sit, and relax and buy little mementos of your time there. No, not this place.  Unless you have a boat that can be tied up and moored, they really don't care if you come there or not.  So this one has been marked off the list and really no reason to have to go there again, EVER.  

There were good trails that were paved, but we'll find our next "state park" to be much better.

Checking out the river. Notice his little backpack.  We've told him we aren't carrying his Ebby, water, rocks, plants, dirt, anything anymore.  What he packs in, he has to pack out. 

    

He can see for miles.

State Parks Weekend

A few weeks ago we decided to do a tour of our state parks in Colorado.  It's actually Colorado's 50th year anniversary, so this was a great time to go and get outside, just walk around and not really do anything on a Sunday.  Our swimming schedule has changed, so we are able to get out much earlier.  Swim, have lunch then get the back pack ready and go.  Our first park we hit was Roxborough.  It's such a pretty park and the trails are well manicured, but still a trail.  On this particular day, it was overcast and not too hot so it made it even better.

We have over 40+ in the state, and are going to try and do at least 20 of those that are 

this side of the divide before September. We'll get to the ones on the Western Slope next

year and after the wedding.  We've got our Passports to get our "park stamp" for each park.  Here is Little Man with daddy checking over his own personal passport and figuring out which direction to go first.

 

On top of the world.  Well, a bench, but great backdrop.

 

Learning about bugs and weeds.

    

After about a 1000 feet up, we all had to stop and rest.  Good photo ops. :)

    

He was such a trooper. I had my pedometer on, and we must have walked about 10,000 steps just at

the park alone.

   

Great scenery.

  

We let Little Man take the lead and just run himself ragged.  That's him, way down in the 

middle of one of the trails.

 

Rattlesnake, black bear and fox country.

   

 

And for our next trip, we went to REI and got all of the right equipment. Back pack for FireHoth to carry, equipped with extra change of clothes, food/snacks, wet

wipes, rope, matches, knives, trail maps, rain ponchos, and everything else we need

for a three hour hike.