Vacation Favorites

Avan Mayıs 22, 2022

Note: I wrote most of this post while I was on vacation in Colorado at the end of June. It is written as though it were a Friday Favorites post, although needless to say, life got in the way and I did not get to post it on the Friday we were on vacation. Here are just a few of the favorites that made my week, when we were on vacation.

Rest areas

Whenever I take a road trip, I become acutely aware of how important rest areas are. Let's face it, when you've gotta go, you've gotta go, whether you are in the car for a long trip or not. This week, clean and convenient rest areas are on my list of favorite things.

Arizona has some decent rest areas. This one, is on the way to Flagstaff and we always stop here. Not only does it have clean restrooms, it has has picnic areas and a beautiful view as well. On this morning, it was way too hot to stop for a picnic, but it is nice that the state maintains these much needed areas for travelers.

Timeshare condos

I know that Dave Ramsey and other financial "experts" say that timeshare are a rip-off, and in most cases, they may well be, but I am sure glad we took advantage the opportunity to buy into a timeshare for a fraction of the regular cost, over ten years ago. For our family, it has totally been worth it. This is the condo we stayed at during our vacation to Colorado.

It's not super fancy, but it is clean, comfortable, large and far better than most hotels we have stayed at. We always enjoy spend a week or two at the timeshare each year - no matter what location we choose.

Pagosa Springs

Pagosa Springs was nice and cool - such a welcome change after the 118-120 degree days we had been having in Phoenix the week before we left.

Hiking

I love to hike and we did quite a bit of that while we were in Colorado.

This is Josh on the Treasure Fall trail. This trail goes to a beautiful waterfall on the way to Wolf Creek pass.

You can see the waterfall in the background there behind Charly and Josh. It is really a beautiful waterfall.

We also attempted to hike the Continental Divide Trail, but we could not access the trail head due to snow.

After the neat of Phoenix, it felt so good to be somewhere cool enough that there was snow on the ground!

Since we couldn't access the trail head to hike, we enjoyed the views.

They were amazing.

Even there was still snow on the ground, there w ere also some wildflowers enjoying the sunshine.

I thought these little white flowers were pretty. I have no idea what they are called.

We were able to hike a little lower down the mountain at Wolf Creek Pass, where there was no snow.

The evergreen forest the trail went through was so beautiful and smelled so good. The dead trees in the picture are largely the result of a terrible fire a few years ago. Most of the healthy trees in the forest are fairly small, because they started to grow after the fire.

It was fun to hike even a little bit of this amazing trail that goes from the Northern to Southern border of our country.

River Rafting

This is the San Juan River which runs through the middle of Pagosa Springs.

When the water is high enough, people like to raft down the river.

Josh and I went white water rafting in the river on afternoon while we were in Pagosa Springs.

It was late in the river rafting season and the water levels in the river were down about five feet from their high point.

Still, we enjoyed our afternoon of rafting on the river.

This was the second time Josh and I had been rafting. The first time was a few years back when we were in Durango, Colorado, about sixty miles form Pagosa Springs. Both times were a lot of fun. Good mom and son memories.

Great Sand Dunes

Another day on vacation, we went to Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve- about a two hour drive from Pagosa Springs.

Great Sand Dunes is an interesting place. There is lots of sand, and, in the spring and early summer, there is run-off water form the near by mountains that form Medano Creek. The water in the creek brought lots of mosquitos. I have never been anywhere that mosquitos were so thick. Charly had to go back to the visitors center gift shop and get some mosquito repellant. It worked well and our day was much more fun when we weren't being eaten by mosquitos.

With our mosquito repellant on, it was fun to wade in Medano Creek.

Wading in the creek with all that soft sand at the bottom feels good on the feet.

After wading in the creek, we decided to hike the sand dunes.

Hiking in all that sand is hard exhausting, must more so than hiking on a dirt trail. We hiked for a while, but had to leave the dunes because it was clouding up and rain was threatening. The risk of being struck by lightening is very real out on the dunes, so visitors are told to leave the dunes when the afternoon clouds roll in, which they do most every day.

Josh enjoyed running down the dunes as much as hiking up the dunes.

We had fun at the Great Sand Dunes.

It was a fun and interesting day! Our family loves America's National Parks!

Pagosa Hot Springs

One of our favorite things about this trip, was going to Pagosa Hot Springs almost every evening and soaking in the natural mineral springs. It was very relaxing.

Charly had been looking forward for months to going to the hot springs every night ever since we planned this vacation. Soaking in the natural hot springs and just talking to each other every evening after a day of fun was probably the best part of the trip!

All in all, it was a great vacation. I am happy and grateful for the opportunity that Charly, Josh and I had to get away and spend a week together before the craziness of moving to another state kicked into full gear. Next week, I plan a catch up post on all that has happened since we got up here to Utah.