Colorado

So here's the big update.
We are on our last day in Colorado.

We've had fun here!

Started at the Dinosaur museum (hot!)

 e've visited MMM: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ at a meetup in a park.

To do that, we had to go out of our way, a bit too far East.

We ended up at Dillon Reservoir, then a bit west, then a bit east, then a bit west, then over the continental divide (BEAUTIFUL!!!)

then in Crested Butte for Brian's conference (Scala)

and now, we're waiting till late tonight to leave, after a huge harvest festival.
http://www.cbchamber.com/vinotok-schedule.html

Colorado is/was wonderful. On to the rest of the journey.

Utah and Helmet Pancake Day!

Nevada was a wide state with lots of miles to cover. We stopped and found a playground, and wireless, discovered that the closest camground was 8 miles away, and decided to head to a motel, where we could slow cooker us some lentil soup, and take hot showers. There were donuts and coffee in the morning (at 4:30am!) and that kept us able to drive directly to Tara's. We kept busy.

writing songs

and sleeping

and taking weird pictures out the window...

 When we arrived in Park City, we played around in the city with Tara and Shawn.

The next day was officially Helmet Pancake Day. 

Complete with:

pancakes while wearing helmets.

waterfalls

paddleboarding

backpacking (1 mile in to a campsite)

star-trails (after the kids went to sleep)

and .... i'm sure there was more, but that was a lot.

That last picture again, just for reference:  -are we carrying enough?

Thanks to Tara & Shawn we had a great time in Utah! :) <3 br="">

In Nevada!

Night at the campground was noisy - crowded and full and people were happy and loud.

We dipped our Toes in Lake Tahoe before heading straight to Nevada.

The lake was crystalline clear, and beautiful, but being Labor Day weekend at one of the most popular vacation areas in this part of California, we basically ran away.

In Nevada, despite the holiday weekend, a tent site was available, at a basically empty but lovely camp area on a small river. We saw about 10 people there the whole time we were there.

Now question: if you put a sign on a corner... which side does it mean?

We went swimming in the river, which was surrounded by beautiful views.

 

The only thing bad about swimming by the river were these crazy plants:

which.... were everywhere, and looked like this, close up.

pretty, but OUCH poor feet!

 So until now, our mantra has been, we're going to miss more things than we do. And so far, it's been so unbelievably true. I think we did about 0.6% of the *official* trails in glacier NP, and none of the unofficial ones. Anyways, in this park, Rye Patch State Park, there were 1.8 miles total hiking trails, *round trip*

So we officially did it all.
The hiking was beautiful.

some kind of tree that was everywhere. Felix kept trying to eat the berries. We tried them, they were vile.

They hiked in bathing suits: It was *hot*!

(Always just "one more" picture. )