Day 1:
Our day began very early (so early we were in Georgia before the sun had even risen!) to catch our flight out to Denver where we met my parents and brother who were already out there. Since we were already in Denver, we visited the Denver Zoo. My brother has loved zoo's since he was little and Dad and Carson kept trailing behind because they were taking so many pictures. I have to admit- zoo's aren't my thing, but this zoo was pretty cool. The first exhibit we hit was the lions. Since lions sleep 20 hours every day we were very lucky to see them up and moving around. We also got to see a feeding where they tossed them huge femur bones. That was probably the highlight of the zoo and it made the whole trip worth it. Then we took a 2 hour drive to the cabin that we were staying at. The guys rushed down to the lake to get about 15 minuets of fishing in before it got dark.
This was one of the last animals that we saw. I have no idea what it was called but it could walk on it's hind legs. So cool looking.
We took it easy in the morning because of the long day the day before. We headed into town for the afternoon to do some shopping and get some food. On the way home, the guys fished Lily Lake while Mom and I fed the ground squirrels.
The guys all caught a fish at some point but this is the only picture we got of Carson. Nope, that's not the bait . . . it's a fish. We didn't get a picture of the big ones he caught later.
Day 3:
We drove up into the Rocky Mountain National Park. This is an all day event because there is so much to see and do (and take pictures of)! We drove up to the top and down the other side to go to a little one street town called Grand Lakes. We have a favorite restaurant there where we had lunch. We saw tons of wild life along the road and were stopping very frequently. We were even lucky enough to see a female moose and her baby! Matt's favorite animal is a marmot (a large ground squirrel about the size of a beaver) and we found a lot of them. Matt even got a pretty up close picture!
Family Picture in Grand Lakes
Matt and the Marmot
Silhouette of Elk against an incoming storm
The scene on our way back down
The guys got up for an early fishing trip while the girls slept in. Once they returned, we went into town for the rest of the day and had dinner at our favorite pizza place, Poppys. They have so many varieties of pizza that it's hard to choose what to get.
Day 5:
We took a trip to Breynard Lake for a hike. Little did we know, we would encounter snow! We were climbing over snow drifts up to 5 feet high! We went as far as we could until the entire path was covered in snow. It made for an exciting trip. We ended the day with some more Mexican food at the Grumpy Gringo.
Carson sliding down a snowbank
Matt and Carson catching snowballs
Day6:
The guys decided to take an all day guided fishing tour. Another laid back day for the girls, so we went back up into the Rocky Mountain National Park determined to see some big horned sheep, but we didn't have any luck with that. It was the only animal in the area that we didn't have pictures of. There was also a Scandinavian Festival in town that my mom and I checked out.
Day 7:
Cabin day for the most part. Matt and Carson hiked Lily Mountain and were able to catch this amazing panorama!
Another day of loading up and traveling. We finally made it back to Atlanta around midnight and once we found the shuttle to our car (an adventure in itself) we were finally headed home. We sure made the most out of the time that we had.
Day 9: Our vacation was over. I had the next few days off to get settled back in, but Carson had his first day of classes at 8am! After our relaxing trip, we returned exhausted.
A note from Carson: If you would like a copy of any of these pictures, simply click on the image here in the blog and then download the full-size version from the page that opens. Enjoy!
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