If you enjoy vacations seen through the eyes of others, please continue...
Day 2: Boulder and Peaceful Valley/Cabin
Yeah, remember all that celebrating? It sort of caught up to us the next morning.
Thank you Quality Inn and Suites for your outstanding continental breakfast that included sausage and egg muffins and Belgian waffle makers.
And I totally realize how unfair it is that I only posted early morning photos of Jenn and Chad here, but A) These are photos from my camera, hence Jenn and Chad are quite often the subjects, and B) Um, this is my blog, so I can do whatever the hell I want. (Yes, I realize I'm asking for retribution from Jenn here, but I'm pretty sure she's a nicer sister than I am.)
After showering and lazing around for a bit, we went to lunch at Centro.
This feast included coconut fried bananas with vanilla anglaise and a free cucumber mint limeade from our waitress. (I think she took pity on our sorry-lookin' selves.) Seriously, behind that smile is a world o' hurt. Damn you, local breweries and your irresistable fare!
We walked around Boulder a bit more and tried the aforementioned unsuccessful bid for scones and tea before hitting the road to Peaceful Valley, our home for the next 5 days. Being in the convertible had some photo-taking advantages.
The drive's scenery was breathtaking and distracted me from my churning stomach.
We stopped in Nederland, a mountain town not far from the cabin since we heard it was the closest grocery store and wanted to check it out. Plus, we definitely needed a break.
We explored the town which took all of 20 minutes since it was basically the grocery store, a little covered bridge, one main street for the tourists and a kwik-e mart that sold us booze on a Sunday. (Woohoo!)
From there, it was on to the cabin!
Again, we had more beautiful driving scenery and incredibly big skies.
At first glance, the cabin didn't seem like anything too extraordinary, but oooooooh, buddy, it got better and better the more we looked around.
The cabin was at the end of a gravel road that housed cabins for the Peaceful Valley Ranch. (Yeah, we saw square dancing and lots of horse poop.)
We were surprisingly isolated for being so close to the ranch and right next to the St. Vrain River. Here was the view from the back of our wrap-around porch.
There was plenty of room.
And rustic decor. Wood-burning fireplace included!
The best part of the cabin had to be "The Big Rock", though. It was a giant boulder in the middle of the river with a fairly wobbly and possibly dangerous bridge leading across the water to it.
We had lots of breakfast, coffee and beer on that rock. Good times.
After exploring our new digs, we headed back to Nederland for some groceries and booze. We used our complimentary grill and charcoal (but no lighter fluid, DOH!) to grill Hebrew National hot dogs and burgers for our first cabin meal.
We also introduced Chad to Smartfood popcorn that night and I think a true love connection was made.
After dinner we retired to the river bank to listen to the dulcet tones of the rushing river... and this guy.
The river is fed by snowmelt from the mountains, so its 40 degree temperatures kept our beer amazingly chilled.
The water for our cabin also came directly from the river, though filtered, UV-rayed and all that germ/microbe killing stuff. It was painfully cold out of the faucet and we never needed an ice cube. Drinking river water did weird me out at first since I've had some bad experiences with well water, and this kind of reminded me of that. I came around pretty fast. Once in my camelback on top of a mountain, it was ice-cold, thirst-quenching deliciousness.
We retired to the big rock to watch the sun set on our first very peaceful day in Peaceful Valley.
And I took weird pictures of our feet.
(Hey, it was our only group shot on the big rock!)
Tune in next time to find out whose lips turned purple from the inability to breathe at high altitudes!
1 comment:
I love having day by day summaries of our vacation! Keep it up!
Post a Comment