Our family vacation to Rocky Mountain Mennonite Camp in Colorado started off with a brief tour of western Kansas. While Ben was busy with some basketball officiating stuff in Dodge City, the boys and I explored the Boot Hill museum.
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| We had a great time...except the boys decided they would NOT have enjoyed the Dodge City jail back in the day. |
Levi enjoyed his sarsaparilla outside the saloon.
And the gun fight at noon was pretty dramatic!
From Dodge we drove to Garden City, spent the night and then headed west for camp!
Right away the boys were eager to take grandpa and grandma down to the pond to explore!
We helped Tom bring the llamas in for night - they graze during the day but get penned up at night.
We hiked up Old Baldy the first day - quite a steep climb but totally worth the effort!
Then we got to enjoy a relaxing afternoon at camp. So peaceful and lovely.
I joined Noah and his buddies for disc golf - turns out I'm pretty terrible at it. But the kids were all super kind and encouraging.
Then we learned about the spruce beetles that are plaguing the trees around camp....interesting to learn about their techniques for combating the beetles and also appreciate the intricacies of nature.
We watched as the boys joined in the fun of Capture the Flag.
Hike 2 took us up Raspberry, the trail led us through some lovely meadows,
and there are actually raspberries growing at the top of Raspberry!
That afternoon Tim got busy fishing.
And during the evening free time we kept busy inside while it rained.
White bread with honey and jam....what's not to love about all that sugar?!?
Hike 3 for Ben and I was Ice Falls.
That afternoon Levi showed off by climbing up the face of Monkey Rock!
I found raspberry plants to photograph while he was getting ready to go...
there he is! It was an odd feeling to watch my "baby" climb up a rock, but he did so good!!
And clearly, he was pretty proud of himself!
Levi practiced all week for the boat race. Literally, he practiced all week.
And he won!!
Then Ben and Levi participated in another race,
and they won too!
Hike 4 was Pikes Peak. Levi stayed back with grandpa and grandma, but Ben, Noah and I hiked the whole thing. We started out at 6:30 in the morning...
and enjoyed beautiful weather as we made our way through the trees,
and meadows - the wild flowers were REALLY showing off this season -
we made it to treeline and kept going...
saw a bit of snow,
got above the clouds,
And then Levi joined us! Tim and Sue drove support vehicles so they met us when we got to the road.
Levi hiked with us for a while, but he hurt his leg slightly so the next time we saw Tim and Sue he hopped a ride with them. Then at the top he was waiting for us on the boulder field!
It was a wonderful hike!
That afternoon was another boat race - this one with boats made from items found in nature!
Levi was pretty excited for this race too, but the results were not what he was hoping for!
The final morning of camp we enjoyed amazing cinnamon rolls (the food all week was so very good!!!), we packed up all our stuff
said far well to grandpa and grandma and hit the road!
