Hot Times in Cool Colorado

On Saturday morning, we said farewell to dear Jeter, the dog that Natalie has grown to love more than her future children. We left Colorado Springs for Fairplay, CO, where Brian’s sister and her husband have a cabin. The drive to the cabin was clear this time, so we could see snow-capped mountains across the horizon.

Truly, it is more of a vacation home in the woods—all 12 of us have our own beds and ample space to hang out. It backs up to a forest with mountains all around. So we eat too much, we sleep just the right amount, and we every once in a while make a foray outside. That’s been the last two days, since we drove here on Saturday, and on Sunday had Christmas. Really not a lot that’s terribly interesting to anyone else!

View from the short hike to a clearing

For instance, Brian has found a new calling as the guy who matches up magazine articles with appropriate readers (so far the two he’s pushed into my hands have been excellent). Andrew is “helping” 7-year-old Levi build all his new Christmas toys, which basically means Levi looks on excitedly while Andrew whips them into shape. Though Levi’s favorite gift turned out to be the little plastic reindeer that Natalie gave him, which poops out brown jelly beans. It is called, appropriately enough, the Sooper Dooper Reindeer Pooper.  Really, what more can a 7-year-old boy ask for?

Zoe and Allison continue their hobby of acting like long-lost twins. Natalie plays games with her cousins and tries not to cough up any vital organs. Iko is spending time learning new words for cold, constantly calculating the temperature from -3 Fahrenheit to -19ish Celsius with a sense of awe and fear. His vocabulary for cold is growing by leaps and bounds. You see how this might not be all that interesting to anyone else.

Iko and Mom soak it up.

So today we decided it was time for some warming up, sort of. Mt. Princeton Hot Springs, a natural hot spring that has been built into several different pools. This has been on the agenda for a while, but still Brian forgot to bring his bathing suit to Colorado. During the aforementioned Costco trip, he bought himself a bathing suit. He didn’t bother to try it on before we left town. So this morning he tried it on, only to find that it is too large, and will likely fall off when it gets wet and heavy. He figures plan B is his new running shorts. I spent a tad bit of time trying to explain that the running shorts were a bit clingy and once wet, might just be more embarrassing to his teenage offspring than the almost-falling-off bathing suit. In the end, we decided he’d cover both bases—running shorts under the suit. I can happily report that his suit did not fall off and cause mortification for any members of the family.

Mt. Princeton offers the choice of a really hot pool or just a hot pool, or for the more adventurous, a trip down the rocks to the river that mixes with hot water from the springs. The river is full of rocks, and there are pools created by the rocks that capture much of the hot water so that you are sitting in your own little thermal bathtub. It only comes up about 6 inches; you can’t completely submerge. But if you did, you would slowly boil to death, so the frigid air on the top half of your body feels super good.

The problem, of course, is when it’s time to get out of the pools—you must transport your wet, steaming body from the nice warm water through the seriously cold air before you can get back to your clothes and the showers in the locker room. But after a couple of hours of lounging and relaxing every muscle, that walk isn’t so bad anymore. Although Levi did mention that his meatballs were frozen, so you can take that for what it’s worth. Sometimes it’s not so bad to be wearing two pairs of shorts. Oh, that’s right, I’m over that.

But what took a little more getting over was Brian’s next revelation. As we walked out to the car, with hair turning into crisp ice and loaded with bags of wet towels and bathing suits, he stopped dead in his tracks and announced that before we went in, he had taken the car key off the ring and locked the rest of the keys and ring in the van. Unfortunately, he took the key to his Nissan, not the key to the van. We hastily caught Julie’s van before it headed out of the parking lot, loaded it full of youth, and went inside the adjacent hotel to wait for the locksmith.

Although this was kind of a pricey mistake, and I wasn’t completely generous in my assessment of the causation of the predicament, it turned out to be a nice interlude in which we sat in the hotel lobby enjoying excellent hot chocolate with Mom and Julie while the van full of kids made its way back to the cabin. Not half bad. And on our ride back to the cabin, an hour later, we saw a pack of coyotes (7!), a whole lotta deer, and a bald eagle.  

Tonight Grandpa and Grandma had a feast with the grandkids and played games and had an early New Years Eve party with them while Julie, Darin, Brian and I went out. This town is full of practical people, who, as you can see by the sign, know that if you are stopping for New Year's champagne, you might possibly need some sporting goods or taxidermy too.  We went to a (the) nice restaurant in town. Good food, good wine, and back in time to say a happy new year to the rest of the family.

 

And Happy New Year to you, too.