A smaller footprint: Colorado Vacation 2012: Day 1

Day 146: Eight hour car trip

Tate woke up crying at 12:45 AM. He knew we were leaving for Colorado some time after he went to sleep. (We had planned to leave around 3AM.) He woke up crying because he thought we had left him behind. Once he knew he had not been left, I knew there was no way I was going to get him back to sleep. I managed to keep him quiet until Michael's alarm went off at 2. Michael prefers to make a lot of the eight hour trip while the rest of us are asleep, traffic is light and there isn't any road construction.

We ended up leaving earlier than we had planned. Both boys went back to sleep, but woke up about sunrise. I had filled a tub with activities and books. The boys helped me pack some of it, but some was a surprise to them. The most popular was a book I made for Tate. I made a map of our trip with corresponding pictures of landmarks. I thought it would keep him occupied for a few minutes, but he loved it! He kept asking where the landmarks were and when would we see them. I told him that was the game, it was his job to find them. It was like a scavenger hunt and I spy.

I put the map and pictures in protective sleeves. I also put some coloring pages and activity sheets in the sleeves. I did this so the boys could color and erase with dry erase markers. They also had small dry erase boards and some dry erase activity books. These were by far the most popular items in the tub.

Thank goodness they were washable because Mayer decided to color him arm. In my defense, he is still rear-facing and was sitting behind me when it happened. (Also the reason for the blurry picture.)

We had breakfast in Lamar, CO a little after 6AM. Here, the boys are having their second breakfast... ice cream. It is a family tradition. The grocery store in the town hear where we stay has a soda fountain. If the grocery store is open when we make it to town, we have ice cream. It doesn't matter what time of day it is.

We headed up to the canyon.

Once we reached the cabin, most of the day was spent cleaning. The caretakers didn't do much to get it ready. We filled an entire 10 gallon trash bag. We ended up going back into town to dump the trash, get more cleaning supplies and some mouse traps. After falling asleep in the truck on the way back, the boys HAD to play in the stream.