Saturday daytrip.

So came finally Saturday. Richard had taken the day off for us to do a summer vacation. Way too short, had too much fun to have it end so soon..

But here are some pictures.

But first a short recap of the day.

We had decided to go up to "Rocky Mountain National Park and hike. It is a 2,5 hour trip one way, so an early start and pick nick was called for. But as Rich worked Friday night, I decided to let him sleep in.

I had packed everything we needed and at 8 am we were on our way.rich had mapped out the route and we were to go north, to Denver, through Denver and take 36 to Boulder. Onward up to Lyons and so on.

Well, the little yahoo map he had printed out only showed the last little bit. From Estes Park. But had the driving directions.So the trip went good. We played some games in the car, talked a lot and had a very nice time. As we drove through Lyons it started to feel like we were ready for a brake. But decided to press on.

But I think something went wrong in Lyons. As the little map we had, did not even show Lyons it was hard to figure out right away...

36 went to the right but started out a little crooked. And that made Rich think we were further than we really was. So Rich decided to turn around, thinking that we had come to a very 'bendy' way through the park, that he had decided NOT to take.

So we turned around and went back down to Lyons.

There we went on the road that went left. At first it was straighter, but soon also turned crooked.
And I started thinking that maybe something is wrong..I was looking at the map we did have, and saw that we might be on CO7. Not 36 that we were supposed to be on.

I got more and more worried as I could not see the whole picture on the map, but on we went. I decided not to say anything, did not want to worry the kids or start an argument. I figured the road had to lead somewhere?

After many long miles we finally saw a road sign, saying that "Rocky Mountain National Park' was left, down a road called Mary Lake Road. Rich turned onto that road and we saw Mary's Lake.

It was very pretty and now I knew where we were, as this road and the lake was on the map I had in my hand. I told Rich to pull over. Most of us needed to use a restroom at this point anyway.I explained my suspicion about the mistake in choice of road and showed Rich the map. We decided to stay at the lake to have lunch. It was very nice!


So, as you can see. We should have taken the shorter, more direct way, but ended up with a very scenic and longer way. But what views!! I am not sorry we drove that way!!

This is from the freeway, Boulder is coming up.

Mary's lake. That is Jacob in the picture. It is a very small lake, cute.

Jacob and Jonathan.

Rich coming up from the car at the parking lot.

Amanda being silly!

Can you see the hummingbird? As my dad said long ago when teasing him on the difficulty of spotting a hummingbird on a picture he took.

De ar sa sma. (They are that small)

Some berries we saw at the lake. They look a little like gooseberries (krusbar) We did not taste them though..:-D

More of the lake.

And some more

Jonathan found a flower.

After lunch, we decided to continue on to the park, but not to enter. As we didn't really have enough time to do any big time hiking anymore. Instead we decided to go to Lakeside in Denver (Arvada). A small amusement park.

The kids in front of a bridge in Lakeside.

As it turned out, Jacob and Amanda had a little hard time to reach up to the height requirements so finding rides they wanted to do, and could was hard. especially for Jacob. He so wanted to do the bumper cars, but was too short. And race cars even worse.. Finally he decided on the bumper boats. But the line was very long!! While the other three squeezed in three rides, Jacob waited patiently for this ONE ride. But see how happy he was!

We closed the day by having a nice dinner out and came home, tired but hapy! I am so sad we can't have more of these days!!!