A few things happened today.
1 - My father, Dan, and I tried to go on a hike.
2 - Little kids went riding.
3 - Big kids went riding.
But first there was breakfast and milling about.
The trout pond.
Mel and John portraying Millennials 40 years from now.
Cellphone in one hand, walker in the other.
Mel and John.
John being silly. That's Grandpa's oxygen tank.
Nancy and Grandpa.
Thing #1 - We try to go on a hike.
The hike begins. Or doesn't. I just wanted to do the Nature Trail that went along the river at the ranch. But my cousin Jimmy said you couldn't do it because it was washed out. He had tried and failed. So we wandered off to check out the bridge instead.
We had acquired maps from the front desk for the hiking trails in the area.
We set off to look for one that was supposed to start just across the street.
We didn't find it. So we kept walking up the street.
Horsemint flowers.
Canadian Thistle and a butterfly (some sort of Fritillary).
That is a very steep ways up.
We wandered farther up the road and saw a sign for a campground. I thought maybe they'd have better maps so we went looking for the campground office. We didn't find it, but we did find a trailhead and decided to hike that. So far the map we had was mostly useless.
Amanitas mushroom! These are super poisonous, so don't eat them.
There is a variety that is edible, but it's really hard to distinguish from the non-edible ones.
I don't know what this one is but it was pretty. If you know what it is, tell me.
Colorado Columbine.
Hiking!
At least the view was pretty.
Only one of these trails was on our map, and the trails we were looking for weren't mentioned or marked ANYWHERE. We climbed up quite a bit along Sourdough (as it was the only trail that matched our map). We weren't quite sure where it was taking us to and Dan and I were concerned about missing lunch back at the ranch. My Dad wanted to keep going, but acquiesced and we headed back down the mountain side.
Random old truck in someone's yard.
We made it back in time for lunch and to have a bit of downtime.
Thing #2 - Little kids go riding.
The younger kids went on a horse ride while my dad, Dan, and I were getting lost.
I imagine it went well but was fairly chaotic.
At least they all have boots and helmets on.
Timmy, Emmie, Pamera, Ruby, Deus, and Meara.
Tim, Mary, Ranch Staff, Michael, Tisha, Deus, and Ranch Staff.
Thing #3 - Big kids go riding.
I was supposed to be a part of this, but my knee was bothering me and I wanted to take a nap instead. Dan took a few photos with the GoPro.
Mike.
Rod and Sally.
The rest of the evening was spent milling about.
Heather caught a trout.
Tim, Billy, and Joe solved world problems around the fire pit.
Carey, David, Mary, Tisha, and Peter block the stairs from anyone else using them.
Several of us got together later and played Cards Against Humanity.
We discovered Lauren (soon to be McBride) is the worst person among all of us.
This concludes our adventures for today.
