Road Trip

So I wrote this post last Thursday. But with the craziness of our road trip I didn't have time to post it with pictures so I'll just make a different post with the pictures. I'll try to post about the rest of the trip later today.

My best friend from College is getting married Saturday in Greeley, CO. Just as she was a bridesmaid in my wedding over 10 1/2 yeas ago, I get to be one is hers. I'm wondering if this is the last wedding I'll ever be in?

So we decided to all drive up together as a family instead of me going by myself. We left around 7pm after Damien got off of work on Tuesday and got to Amarillo, TX around 12:30am. After a short hotel stay we left around 10am and got to Colorado Springs, CO around 3:30 (actually it was 2:30 because of the time change). Tonight we're staying at Glen Eyrie. It's owned by the Navigator's. It's a beautiful 'campus' right next to Garden of the Gods. They host many marriage and different spiritual conferences throughout the year. In fact, they seem to be having some sort of teen retreat going on right now. After we quickly got settled in around 4pm, we decided if we were going to get any sight seeing in we needed to leave right away. So we headed to "Garden of the Gods." It was beautiful and fun to just run around and look at the cool "rocks". Perfect for photo shots of the kids. Unfortunately I forgot my camera! Annoying. Half way through I realized I had a camera in my phone and took a few pics. Micaiah was having a blast while Orin sort of lagged behind. If you know Orin, you know that is NOT like him. He said he wasn't feeling well and as soon as I felt him I knew he had a fever. Poor kid, a road trip is not a fun time to be sick. He still tried to make the most of it, but spent most of the time being held by daddy. After our little hike, and a quick stop at Walgreen's for medicine, we ate dinner. By the end, we were all exhausted.

Today we woke up and had breakfast in the "castle". The kids enjoyed the idea of being in the castle even though it was just a regular room. We walked around the Glen Eyrie grounds for a while after checking out at 10am and then started the long drive up Pike's Peak. I had wanted to take the train up the mountain, but for all of us to go would have cost $85! So, driving it was. The kids couldn't wait. All morning all they could talk about was going up 'The snow mountain." We stopped a few times along the way up but still, they couldn't wait to walk in the snow. Unfortunately, we hadn't really planned on what we were going to do for our short time in Colorado Springs, so I hadn't looked to see that you need jackets at the top of Pikes Peak. Actually, you really need coats. When we go to the park, we were told that because of wind, we could only drive up 17 of the 19 miles, but they assured us that there would be snow. So the whole way up Orin kept talking about how he wanted to take his shoes and socks off and walk around in the snow. I just laughed. The drive was fun although I wasn't sure how I would feel as we got to the top. The summit is about 14,500 feet high - I don't think I've ever been above 8,000 besides a plane. Oh, and I'm not scared of heights but I was a little freaked out as we were driving up to the top. Have these people never heard of guard rails! Seriously, it was crazy. When we stopped at the top (mile 17) we understood why they said to bring jackets. It was freezing and SOOOOO windy. The kids lasted just a few minutes. And poor Orin, not feeling well, wasn't incredibly excited about the experience. After all of that anticipation, I felt bad that he didn't enjoy it. It stinks that he's sick because normally he'd still LOVE it. On the way down there was a place with rocks and Damien convinced Orin to go and climb. I think this made up for it. He seemed to have fun although he was still shivering uncontrollably when they got down. Right before we got to the bottom Micaiah said he needed to poop. And soon we realized he was serious because he was almost crying as he kept saying over and over that he needed to go. Damien tried not to rush down while I was just saying hurry over and over and as soon as we got to the bottom the only thing was port-a-potty. I hate those things! And when Micaih poops, he sits all of the way back on the seat, and puts his hands on it too. I lined the entire thing with toilet paper, but as soon as I put him on (as carefully as I could not to disturb the paper) it was all messed up. I almost had to leave and have Damien say in there because it was so gross. I pretty much gave him a bath with antibacterial wipes when he was done. Once that excitement was over we headed up to Greeley. The only bad thing about going up Pikes Peak was that after two days of driving we spent another better part of the day in the car. We got to Greeley in about 2 1/2 hours after enjoying some Denver traffic. So, we're now in our third hotel in three nights. Orin keeps asking when we're getting to Ms. Amy's house. For some reason he's stuck on going to a house. He used to love hotels but now I think he's a little sick of them. :-)