Ouray, CO for the 4th of July!

Steve and Connie have a house up in Ouray and I have never been there for the 4th. I know, I couldn't believe it :) It's kind of one of those traditions for them to go up there over the 4th and it just so happened that we seemed to be out of town during all the 4th's leading up to this year! SO... this was the year to go! We began the weekend by fishing on their lake Friday night...


















































Then, the next morning, we went to Ouray's infamous 4th of July parade. IT WAS AWESOME! If you look in some of the pictures, you can see that it was basically just ONE HUGE water fight between the onlookers and those that were in the parade. There were HUGE water hoses amongst many of the floats/vehicles and many of the onlookers had buckets, buckets, and yes...buckets of water and super soakers! It was great!





















































































And, then there came FOOD! Later that day we had the traditional 4th of July BBQ and ended with Connor and Joey drawing pictures in the air with sparklers, and then heading into town for the fireworks show. It was so great because the fireworks were up against a mountain side and we had a thunder/lightening storm occurring simultaneously!

Boulder and Casa Bonita!

About two weeks ago, we went into Boulder and walked through an outdoor mall where Connor found a few fun things to sit on...













After Boulder, we thought we would take Connor to Casa Bonita for dinner! It's a themed Mexican Restaurant with cliff divers, singers, gorillas, real palm trees, a waterfall, magic shows, a mine, etc. The food is...well, not that great, but who cares! It's like sort of being in Disneyland :) Anyway, here are some pictures!















Cliff Divers and fire show!















Old Mine and haunted caves!


















The waterfall...















And, just a random boy that was riding on some of the rides with Connor!

Scott's Bluff, Chimney Rock, and Cave of the Winds

Scott's Bluff, Nebraska. Famous landmark along the Oregon and Mormon Trail
















Chimney Rock, Nebraska. Another landmark along the Oregon and Mormon Trails














Caving at Cave of the Winds in South Dakota! It's the 4th longest in the world and can get up to 70 mile per hour winds!

Mt. Rushmore, Badlands, Ft. Hays, Crazy Horse, and Wall Drug!

Keystone, SD! What a fun town! The Black Hills were amazing and we loved the board walk through town...















Ft. Hays! This is where they filmed Dances With Wolves. We had a "cowboy breakfast in a barn on tin plates, and then walked around the Ft. There is a picture below of an upside down tree. They cut it down, flipped it over, and well, it's growing :)
















Badlands! Well, Sean wasn't too impressed. If anyone has ever been to Western Colorado or Utah, you would probably say the same thing. I'm glad we did it, but it sure didn't compare to the landscapes of Utah and Colorado

















These pictures are from WALL DRUG. I know, wired name, huh? Well, after driving out in the middle of nowhere to see the Badlands, we literally saw probably 50 billboards advertising for WALL DRUG along the way. So, we decided to stop and see what it was. Well, this is what it was...a strip of themed stores, a wax museum, fountains for hte kids to play, and many places to take pictures. It was actually AWESOME!


















These pictures are from Mt. Rushmore! It was actually a lot smaller than I thought it would be, but still quite amazing! We had to hike about a mile if we wanted to get up closer to the mountain.















These last three are from Crazy Horse. This Memorial is HUGE! It's the largest sculpture in the world and probably won't be done in our lifetime. It's taken them 50 years to JUST do the face, and they're hoping to carve out his arm, his flowing hair, torso, and his horse! It was amazing!