A lovely Tuesday in Pagosa Springs

This morning was wonderful - although the kids woke up at buttcrack thirty again, Rick let me sleep in... and I didn't roll out of bed till 9 a.m. The aroma of that wonderful creme brulee coffee was a perfect wakeup call.

Rick and the kids had been hiking around the grounds with the dogs, who at one point had taken off (no doubt after some small animal) across the meadow. Violet volunteered to go after them but by that time Riley was tired... so Rick and Riley came back and got the car to pick up the pups, who had also by that time gone swimming in a couple of the watering holes. Soon Rick, the kids, and the dogs were all back and tired from their morning activities.

After a leisurely coffee and bagel breakfast, we planned our day - we would take the kids to a local petting zoo where they could see all sorts of local wildlife including elk and a BEAR! The kids couldn't wait. We piled into the car and headed out there... only instead of going left, we went right... and we ended up far off track. We didn't let that deter us... instead we turned it into an adventure - and we ended up at a beautiful hiking trail.

It was called "Treasure Falls" and it was an incredible waterfall - and legend has it, somewhere nearby there is a whole lot of gold buried that has yet to be found. The hike was only about 1/4 mile each way, but it was a little bit tricky because it took us 200 feet up, right to the waterfall. There were a couple of overlooks that were simply amazing... and one, the "misty" overlook, where Violet and I got completely soaked trying to read the trail marker.

After that hike, we kept driving... up winding mountain roads, until we noticed we seemed to be sort of at a summit - and sure enough, we saw the marker on the side of the road. We had reached the Continental Divide - the middle of the Rocky Mountain range that separated the San Juan Forest from the Rio Grande Forest. We stopped and hiked around a bit - and the kids even got to play in the snowy areas by the trees. They couldn't believe that there was still snow here in the middle of the summer!

After that little stop, we headed back, since we realized that clearly we did not go the right way to the petting zoo. Instead we went into town and looked for a place to have lunch. Lynne had told me about a cute little coffee shop over by the river that had good Internet reception - and I thought that would be a perfect spot to eat so that I could finally upload my photos. It was right by the river and we got to watch rafters and kayakers go by.

The only problem is that since I am on Rick's computer, I don't have any image editing software - so I couldn't make the file sizes smaller before uploading the photos. This meant that even though I could reduce them in Photobucket, I still had to get the full size files there... and each file took about 3 minutes. So that alone was about an hour... and then I had to post them to the blog. While all that was going on, Rick took the kids on a walk around the river and springs areas... twice... and finally lost his patience. Fortunately I was finishing up my photo blog postings and could leave with him.

We made one last stop - at the malt shoppe - for the kids to get shakes. At the back of the shoppe was one of those brochure stands... and we looked for a local company that did river rafting tours. We found one that was right down the street and was reasonably priced - and they offered family river tours! We decided we would definitely do it later on in the week.

Finally back to the house we went and Riley fell asleep. Rick, Violet and I played cards for a little bit while watching the College World Series on ESPN. I know. Shocking. Baseball. The most boring sport on earth to watch. But I suffered through it so we could watch our friend Bryce (#29 on Georgia's team) play. Georgia won last night so if they won tonight it was all over. Unfortunately, they didn't win - so the series is tied and it all comes down to tomorrow night.

Papa and Mama Lali arrived just as the game was starting and it was great to have them here. We ate a lovely dinner of barbequed chicken and venison, corn on the cob, and salad. And after dinner we all took a hike down to the picnic area for a yummy dessert of smores by the fire... but before eating smores, we all (ALL. even mama lali!) played hide and seek. It was hysterical having everyone sneaking around everywhere and hiding in the trees, behind bushes, or what Riley did - crouching down in the tall grass.

Once it started to get dark we headed back to the house to chill out. Our plan was to play cards and watch more stars, but we were too tired and before we knew it everyone was heading to their respective beds. And I hopped on the computer for my nightly blog. Looks like service is decent tonight - hopefully this will post quickly and I can get to sleep, too!

Hopefully we can get to town tomorrow so I can add more photos. :)