What? You didn’t notice we were gone? I usually put a ‘Temporary (blank) adventure’ up on the heading when we’re off, but time got away from me on this trip. James went out of town and Joel had his first EMT test to study for and take (he made an 87), so the girls and I went camping. Here is a quick tour of what we did (because we just got home and I’m tired.)
Saturday, we dropped James at the airport, packed up and headed out to La Junta. First stop was the Rocky Ford museum. The problem with one horse towns is that there is usually one person doing stuff; the person in charge of opening the museum decided to take a vacation, which is fine (I guess), but that meant that no one else in town could open the museum.
Fine, at least we got to see the old Carnegie library that now houses the museum. Since we were in Rocky Ford we stopped at a Farmer’s market and bought some peaches and their local cantaloupe, RF cantaloupe is so good (especially when it went from the field to the market in the same town.)
Next stop the Otero museum (which was open.) We had a very nice guide who told us about everything in the museum, Grace helped him pump the player piano and we sang ‘God Bless America’ as the piano played the tune.
We saw wagons, dollhouses, WWII items and….moustache cups.
I know you think moustaches are just a fad, but back in the 1800′s the moustached gentleman needed a moustache guard so he could sip his tea in style.
We left there and went to find a camping spot. I wanted to try Hollbrook reservoir, but it was bone dry. It was super hot (102) and the girls wanted to swim, so we went to Lake Meredith to camp.
The lake was way down, but there was still 3 feet of water to swim in.
We had a nice sunset and roasted hot dogs and peeps (yes, peeps, like from Easter…I’ve been saving them.)
The scene the next morning.
Sunday, our goal was hiking in a few spots and seeing Boggsville.
We went to Picketwire canyon and we had a nice breeze as we hiked 4 1/2 miles in and out.
We saw Indian petroglyphs and we followed a dry river bed in the canyon looking for ruins and a spring. We had lunch there in the shade and then went to the Oxbow SWA for a short hike.
The Arkansas river and some sunny sunflowers were the highlights.
We drove to Boggsville and saw Kit Carson’s original grave, final homestead and bought a cold coke.
That’s on the Santa Fe trail, if you didn’t know.
Then we headed back toward home, stopping in the Springs for pizza at Fargo’s and going to the park for the Colorado Springs balloon classic.
The girls got to walk inside one of the balloons, that was very cool
More to come!
