Monday, July 16, 2007

Rocky Mountain High

Katie and I just returned from Colorado where we were attending the wedding of her high school friend, Caryn. Since we had never spent any time in Colorado, we decided to make a vacation out of it and go a couple of days early. We stayed with our friend Jane at their family's home in Keystone, Colorado (elevation 9,267 ft). Here we are in the back yard of the house, with Swan Mountain and the Rocky Mountain wilderness in the background.
On Thursday we went for a hike in nearby Dillon, CO. At the top of a mountain lies the original reservoir for the town, which today is preserved as a historical site and nice place to hike. Here's the view over Dillon Lake from the top.




Here's a shot of the reservoir itself.


While on the hike I introduced Jane to geocaching. We found two nearby caches. Here we are exploring the hidden treasure!


Later we did some shopping in Breckenridge. Colorado was in full bloom this week. The local specialty seems to be multicolored flower boxes like these in front of a store on Breckenridge's main street. All of the ski villages were covered with these types of flowers.


Breckenridge also offered alpine sledding. You take the chair lift to the top of the run, and then you ride a special sled down the toboggan runs you can see in the picture. It's a lot of fun, you get going really fast into the sharp curves.


On Friday we explored yet another village, Keystone. We paused for the obligatory silly picture...


Keystone was postcard-perfect, with blue skies, puffy white clouds, and an alpine village with a cold mountain stream running through it.


Finally, Saturday arrived and it was time to celebrate our friends' wedding in Vail. We happened to catch Caryn and Steve taking a break from wedding photos by stopping into a local bar in the village for a quick refresher. Cheers, indeed!


Katie and I loved Colorado and the chance to see old friends and make new ones. Everyone we met at the wedding was fantastic, and the setting was inspiring. We can't wait to get back there again!

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