Brace yourselves...

This has definite potential to be a rather long winded, poor quality picture studded, tiny bit complainy blog post.

Let me begin with two things.
A) I love my family. No amount of dislike for being holed up in one Suburban and one hotel room for four days is going to change the fact that I love my family. (Woohoo, a preface like this is a sure sign this post is gonna be a doozy!)
B) I don't mean to be demanding or whiny, but my comments button beneath the posts has been sadly empty. My blog's feelings are going to get hurt! (Or worse! I'm going to get bored because there's no comments to giggle over. :p)

Now that those are off my chest, on to

Colorado!


Which was actually a lot more fun than I was expecting! Thursday bright and early we loaded up with some yogurt parfaits and hit the road (Jack)!
We then drove.
            and drove,
and drove,
 ................................ and drove some more.
(Is drove even a word? Because it's sounding more and more questionable each time I repeat it. Oh well, you get my point.)

We met up with Grandma and Grandpa Barton, and Aunt Laraine and Uncle Tom in Richfield and guess what we did next?
Yup. You're all very smart. We went on a hunting trip for Big Foot.
(Just teasin. We drove. (And drove and drove and drove and drove and drove and drived and drove and drove and bathroom breaked and drove and drove and gassed up and drove and drove and drove and drove and.... etc. :p))

I have to admit. The dry flat part of Colorado- the part that looked a lot like Utah- wasn't my favorite. But then we broke down in Ridgeline(?) and it was green and meadow-y and really pretty! Two hours later, we're back on the road driving over part of the Rockies, which was gorgeous, and finally getting to our hotel in Durango. I won't lie, I would've been pretty content just hanging out in Durango. It was really cute, and we spent Friday morning at a Train museum (all eyes on Grandpa so he wouldn't hop the tracks and become a hobo ;) ) The museum had a bunch of old trains, old keys, old cars, old everything! (There was a desk with a typewriter, a phonograph, and an old telephone. So cool!)
My favorite part of the museum, though, was the giant layout for tiny toy trains to run along. There were mountains, and a lake with people canoeing in it, tiny lumberjacks chopping down trees, a little Native American camp with a glowing campfire and dancers and coyotes, little cowboys on horses, tiny ruins, a little town with a drive in theater and matchbox cars in it's parking lot... how cute is that?? I could've spent hours there looking at all the cute tiny details. :)
Which is why they took us to a chocolate factory next because if anything could lure us away from cute tiny trains, that'd be it. :)
We took an hour or two to explore the cute shops and boutiques of downtown Durango, and then had lunch at a rather fancy facility: Micky D's. :p
Then. On the road again.
Stop at Mesa Verde visitor's center, buy tickets for tours, drive around a scenic loop, and then to Cortez to swim and not be in a car finally! Our hotel room there had a 'fort' with two bunk beds and a little t.v. I wish I would've taken some pictures, it was kind of cute!

Saturday was spent hiking into 'Cliff Palace', and 'Balcony House'.

Cliff Palace was incredible! It's so hard to picture people building all this with some sticks and mud and rocks. No modern tools, just rocks and sticks and hands. It's mind boggling a little bit, isn't it? This one was the biggest ruin we saw. It goes back into the cliff 90 feet, and has 150 rooms! Crazy huh?


Oh Balcony house. Incredible, as well. But I have to confess, my palms and feet are getting that tingly sweaty terrified of heights feeling just putting pictures up and thinking about it. :p

This doesn't look too bad in a picture, but this is the 32 foot ladder we climbed up a cliff face to get into the ruins. I couldn't find a picture, but there was a little semi claustrophobic tunnel (18 inches wide. Seriously.) we crawled through, and then another ladder to get to 'stairs' that were narrow and steep and carved out of a cliff face. Oh don't worry. There was some chain to hold on to and some flimsy wire fence between you and what I'd like to call death. Haha. It was definitely adventurous! And I'd probably do it again. (But this time I am not looking down under any circumstance. I'm also not going to go up the 'stairs' behind a poor 70 year old man who kept stopping to catch his breath.Truly people, I was ready to crawl between his legs and scramble to the top. You can't just stop on a CLIFF FACE! I think I almost had a heart attack. Or aneurysm. Or something.)

In the lobby of our hotel there was a woman selling turquoise jewelry, so we stopped to look... bad idea. I may or may not have spent $30 on a turquoise ring. Bri and Megan got $5 bracelets. Much easier on the wallet. But I don't wear bracelets. I wear rings. And I'm stubborn. And now $30 less rich. :p (Although it makes me feel in touch with my Grandma Theora side. :p)

I'll post some pictures when I steal them from the other cameras. :)