Breckenridge CO and Estes Park CO

We spent 3 days in Breckenridge and we have now been in Estes Park for 3 days. In Breckenridge, we saw lots of snow again and had a great time exploring the town, swimming and playing games in the game room at the "resort." Tiger Run was definitely the "nicest" RV park I have ever seen. The kids would have stayed there all day every day if we let them... swimming in the pool and hot tub and playing games in the game room. There were two rivers and a pond to fish in too, but the river was running a little too fast to catch fish because of all of the snow runoff. We spent some time looking at property in Breck and found a house we really love. We are looking at possibly buying a 50% interest in it and "sharing" it with the current owner. Long story, but he doesn't really want to sell it but cannot really afford his mortgage any more. It could be a win win, since they really want to be there in teh winter, and we really want to be there in the summer. We'll see...

The kids say their favorite thing in Breck was the hot tub :) Tom says his favorite part was the fly fishing trip he went on.

In Estes Park, we found a really great place to stay also - Spruce Lake RV Park. It is not as "nice" as the one in Breck, but it is like a summer camp for families. We are right on the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park, which is beautiful. There is a stocked lake for fishing - Layton caught his first fish this morning! It was a pretty big rainbow trout. He is very proud :) The park itself has tons of activities for the kids. There is a pool, the lake, the river, a putt putt course and an activity center that has some sort of party going on every day. Last night there was a karaoke and dance party with a bbq. This morning, there was a pajama pancake party. We went into town yesterday and did some shopping and looking around. Later today, we are going to be very lame and go see Cars 2 - the kids are dying to see it and it is quite windy today.
Tomorrow, the kids start day camp at the YMCA Estes Park. They both will get to take horseback riding lessons, archery lessons, fishing, arts and crafts, etc. They are going for 3 days... which will be nice for me :)

Blogspot is not letting me upload pictures easily for some reason, so if I haven't sent you snapfish links and you want to see pictures, let me know!

Skipping Amarillo... straight to New Mexico

Our second stop was Amarillo. Nothing special and I got a tummy bug. So, we just aren't going to talk about it :)

Our third stop was Santa Fe. I have been to Taos several times, but never stopped in Santa Fe. We stayed at the Santa Fe Skies RV Resort. It was basically a parking lot... nothing great. But, we did a lot of fun things in a short amount of time. We found 2 really great restaurants and found that the people in New Mexico are very friendly and liberal... just our type! We spent the day first at the Historic Santa Fe Plaza, which is a lot of Indian jewelry and good food, including a great chocolatier (they make green chile chocolate pistachio bark - interesting). Then we went to Bandalier National Monument. This was pretty awesome. We climbed in a bunch of historic caves (yes, people actually lived in them at one time). The kids were troopers and were pooped by the end.

Tom decided he had enough of the heat by the end (it was only 89 in Santa Fe, not even close to the 110 in Austin, but still pretty warm)... so we drove into the wee hours of the morning straight from Santa Fe to Silverton, Colorado. More on that later...

Tom and the kids at Bandalier National Monument - the beginning of our hike

The kids taking a rest at Bandalier

Historic Santa Fe Plaza

The Kids at the Plaza

Day 1 - Lake Grapevine

We had to make our first stop at Lake Grapevine, which seemed boring to us since we lived in Grapevine for so long. It turned out to be so much fun though. We stayed at the Vineyards RV Resort right on the lake. Our campsite was the nicest we have ever had before, with a nice wooden deck, a nice concrete patio with a fire pit and grill right by the water. We were a short walk from a sandy swimming beach and a really nice playground. I'll post pictures a little later. The kids had a ball swimming, playing on the playground and feeding the ducks pretty much all of our bread :)

Layton says his favorite part about this stop was playing on the beach. Allison says her favorite part was feeding the ducks. Mary & Tom's favorite part was a REALLY good night's sleep due to the kids being worn out :)

Next up... Amarillo. Again, doesn't sound terribly exciting, but it is on the way to Santa Fe...