I have officially decided to abandon my cookie project. I don't usually quit things, but when you start doing something for fun, and it becomes a chore, then it seems to me that it should be time to stop, especially when it is something that increases grocery bills and calorie intake :-).
I was not feeling great on Wednesday, so I just put away my CSA box without taking a picture, but it had a lot of citrus, which was exciting (oranges and grapefruit), many of our regular things like avocadoes, lettuce and cucumber, and then the big new thing this week was green beans. There is my twenty second update on that.
Okay, so on Saturday in Colorado, Blake and I had our one leisurely morning in our hotel room, and decided to do it right with room service delivered to our room, ordered the night before, so it just arrived shortly after we woke up. It was a wonderful morning enjoying the scenic view, eating a nice breakfast on our patio.
Then we joined my brother and my parents as we drove on our many excursions that day.
Our first stop was interesting because my brother picked it, but I think Blake and I enjoyed it the most- a dinosaur museum! Blake and I actually really enjoyed looking at these various fossils, bones and replicas and learning all about these amazing creatures.
The next few hours were just okay as we drove out to a little town known as Cripple Creek. It was advertised as a ghost town, and the town itself is very old, but in the early 90's gambling was legalized there, so it seemed like Vegas in the sheer amount of Casinos in such a small space. My brother wanted to go there to get some good pictures, which he did, but it wasn't even a highlight for him.
On our way back from spending the morning driving there and back (it was an hour away) we went to Cave of the Winds. My mom didn't have an interest in walking around the cave, so when we found out we were waiting an hour for the next tour anyways, my dad drove her to the Indian cliff dwellings nearby for her to explore, and then returned to take the tour with us.
I really enjoyed most of our cave tour, though there were some very tight spaces that I had to fight claustrophobia, but even so it was very interesting to learn about caves and the history of the cave.
After our tour was over, we picked up my mom and went back to the hotel. I had booked reservations for all 5 of us to go to the Flying W Ranch, but my mom and brother decided that they didn't really want to go. So, my dad, Blake and I headed off to the ranch for dinner.
They had a few activities around the town before dinner, but what caught our attention most was someone cleaning a horse's hooves, and then putting horseshoes on. Dinner was good, but the evening entertainment (a cowboy style singing group) was fantastic! I had such a good time there that I was reluctant to leave early, but we wanted to beat the crowd, besides we had an early call the next day for our hot air balloon ride.
Sunday morning was really early. We had to be in the south lobby at 5:15am for the balloon ride. This was just the three of us again (dad, Blake and I). I had never been on a hot air balloon ride before, but I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. It was slightly less interesting at the beginning because our pilot was having trouble finding a wind current that morning, but eventually he found one, and it became really exciting. The landing was less than perfect because although the balloon landed upright, it was not staying that way, and eventually the pilot just let us know that the basket was going to tip over, and we were going to have to get out sideways, which was interesting lol. Some of my favorite pictures from the whole trip were actually from the balloon ride.
We got back to the hotel fairly early still, about 9 (crazy to think how much we did and were back by 9 lol), and the only plan that we had at this point was to meet up for lunch after my dad and brother went to the Colorado Springs Apple store. Blake and I thought about what we wanted to do for the morning, and I think we found the perfect way to spend the morning... we found some chairs by the hotel's lake, and we read our books. For an avid reader like myself... this is a little piece of heaven. :-)
After lunch and a little more hotel time, we went to the Academy Riding Stables to go horseback riding. This time, everyone except my dad went. My horse's name was Bonita. It was a fun experience, but I wished I could go a bit faster, and unfortunately, I felt like I spent the majority of the ride making her slow down because she kept getting too close to Blake's horse! All four of us agreed it was an interesting experience that we wouldn't mind doing again. The scenery was okay (it was at the Garden of the gods), but the real highlight was the horseback riding.
Dinner that night was interesting as well because we went to a restaurant that specializes in more unique food, like ostrich, venison, wild boar, elk and buffalo. Between the five of us we tasted all of them! Our collective favorite was the ostrich, which after sharing the appetizer with the four of us, my brother actually ordered some more for himself. :-) I appreciated the fact that our last meal was somewhere unlike anywhere we could eat in California (I feel like I "waste" meals if they are identical food I could eat at home).
*The pictures above are a combination of my pictures, my brother's pictures and my dad's pictures (when Grant wasn't there), but the pictures below are my brother's pictures of Thursday and Friday events.
You went to the Craftwood too!! The ostrich was sooo good! I loved the cave tour as well and the Garden of the Gods. Wasn't brave enough to do the hot air balloon though. You captured some really beautiful pictures!! :)
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