About a Joy: 11.47: The Steamboat Springs Vacation

Steamboat Springs is a beautiful ski town located in the heart of Colorado. If Colorado had a heart, that's where I'd put Steamboat Springs, is what I'm trying to say. Actually, if any state had a heart that would be weird.

After many discussions between Jason and I and where we'd like to go this summer for a short get away, Steamboat is where we landed. And the more I type "Steamboat" the more odd I think the name sounds.

For whatever reason I'm really into road trip pictures before we take a road trip. This makes more sense than being into road trip pictures before we fly somewhere, wouldn't you all agree?

That picture even qualified to be my loathsome FaceBook profile photo.

This one had Jason's shoulder giving Evan the shaft.

This is me being sassy.

I felt bad for Evan but really, it appears he didn't care anyway.

And only 10 minutes after all those pictures I spotted the incline and felt compelled to take a picture of it because it looked so daunting from a car angle and I couldn't believe I ever climbed it.

Then I stopped taking pictures and read a book. That's how I stay smart.

Hey look! A Steamboat Springs sign! We made it!

This is our condo. When I say that, I don't mean we own it.

There was no bathroom.

Just kidding. That picture is ~~for sale so I'm not posting it here for free~~ boring.

This is the pool/hot tub area, conveniently located just outside our condo's back door.

It has an indoor/outdoor pool facility which also has another hot tub inside. Yes, I use the hot tub in the summer. I think lizards and crocodiles would too if they had access.

I'm convinced Dawson and Evan would be happy to go anywhere on vacation as long as there's a pool.

This is the little patio at our condo. Me and the boys sang happy birthday to my sister Karen from this patio. Well all except for Evan who was a turd burgler and refused.

See, I wasn't lying about the pool being right outside our back door. I literally could have pole vaulted from the patio into the pool. If I knew how to pole vault.

I'm campaigning to get one of these for my house so that I can use it to wedge into my pants that are too tight. I'm not sure how this apparatus is superior to a bed. I just want one.

Also if you suck in, you can fit two people on it.

I think my favorite part about Steamboat Springs is that it's so green. And green is my favorite color. Not that color of green that I just used for the font though. fyi.

There's a free shuttle available to take you into town. And by shuttle I mean bus. But wouldn't it be way better if it was a space ship shuttle? I should call the Steamboat Chamber of Commerce and clue them in.

On the agenda one of our days was to find good coffee. I thought this coffee shop had good coffee, but I felt the place looked like a science experiment. Jason had to explain that people actually use beakers now to make coffee.

We bought groceries so that we didn't have to eat out every night because we're savvy like that. They wouldn't let us take the shopping cart on the bus though. Jerks. Jason told the boys we should try to hitchhike instead.

This is Evan's newest pose for pictures.

He also sort of looks like a little colonial nerd with his shorts wadded up like that.

We ended the first night with dinner at an Italian place called Mazzola's.

And a relaxing time of electronics.

Dawson and Evan had to sleep on a pull out couch. Looks comfortable enough to me.

We spent day 2 at Strawberry Park Hot Springs.

This is also the day that I managed to get a bad sunburn on my quads and knees (stupid spray sunscreen) and Dawson got burnt on his shoulders. Being burnt on your shoulders way more tolerable than being burnt on your knees in my opinion. Especially if you want to sit in the hot tub.

The water pictured here is actually freezing cold. We speculated that this body of water which was snow melt from the mountains was about 30 degrees. Cold enough to take your breath away if you jumped in, which many people did (including Jason) because it was hot outside and hot in the hot springs and people are crazy. My big toe caught hypothermia when I dipped it.

This was my attempt at sneaking a picture of the chipmunk who sat under my chair to snack on ~~goldfish crackers~~ the variety of healthy nuts and seeds I was giving him.

This hot springs also has a "no children at night" rule due to the fact that they let adults have "clothing optional" time during those hours. I'm just going to say it. There are many people in this world that just need to keep their clothes on. I shudder to think.

I think this would be so pretty in the winter as well.

I specifically took this picture because I was enamored by the steam coming from this spring. The last time we visited here, I scalded my toe in this water because I was so curious to know how hot it was. In my defense, there was no "caution tape" around it the last time.

A few more scenic pictures and I'll be done holding you hostage at the hot springs.

We ended this night by eating out on the deck of a little Mexican joint called Salt & Lime.

The 3rd day brought our 11.47 mile hike to the top of Thunderhead Peak. We thought this was a brilliant idea because this was the opening day of the gondola's being back in business and the word on the street was that if you hiked to the top, you would get a free ride down in the gondola.

This is the "we are about do this thing" before shot at the base of the mountain.

Really, we should have known it was a risky venture when the lady in the ski patrol center said "well the trail heads aren't marked yet, because this is the opening day of the trails".

She kindle led us to the opening of the Thunderhead Trail Way path and gave us vague instructions that didn't make us feel like our legs would fall off when we reached the top.

We got to about this point in 10 minutes and were extremely confused.

Jason was determined to use this map he had on his phone but it was completely wrong about our location as well as our surroundings. That doesn't get a man down, now does it. He wouldn't budge from the map. So while he was marching around the area talking to himself about his map and how it was wrong and didn't make sense, I stopped a guy coming down the mountain to ask him where the trail continued. And he told me, but his directions became confusing.

We got about 15 minutes up the mountain to this juncture and didn't know where to go.

We found a path that turned out to be for frisbee golf

But the view was pretty.

After wondering around aimlessly for a bit we hiked down a hill where I found some workers leaving in a truck and I stopped them to ask them how to get to the trail head. Finally, they told us how to find it. And we did. Eventually. At this point I'll just share an alarming amount of scenic pictures and stop talking til the end. Or until I feel like it.

Oh look! The trail head!

This was me pretending that I wanted to get a cool shot of them farther away when really I was just stinking too tired to keep up.

It was at this point that we were in misery. We had no idea where the top was because we lost site of the gondolas and we were ready to call it quits and go back down the mountain. Thanfully, my phone belted out "6 miles" and I after a small bit of calculating in my head, I realized we only had a 1/2 mile left before we should be at the top. I had to really convince the boys that this was true. But just around this corner was the mountain top! Victory!

That's when we took this after picture:

We found some nice workers in the building who told us that the gondola ride down was in fact free. At 3:00. It was noon. We would have to wait there for 3 hours with nothing to do in order to ride down. I was all for it. Shoot, I would have taken a nap. But Dawson and Jason out voted me and said they would rather hike down so they could get to the pool faster.