The Goodrums

♫♪♫♪

I actually sang that Psalty the Singing Songbook song while driving out on our recent camping adventure. Only my family will appreciate the song. Even Jen Nelson commented that the CD we had listened to about 45 times already was just fine (we forgot to bring the CDs and there's not much radio to be found in the mountains). Unfortunately, I couldn't find a video or MP3 of the "We're going camping" song - but I did find this clip that should give you an idea of its excellent quality. It's no wonder we all had major socially awkward stages growing up... :)

Anyway, this first weekend in August, we embarked on a little mountain get away - redemption for this post.

My college roomie, Jen, joined us from Texas for the adventure. Jen flew in Friday night. Saturday morning we packed up and headed out to the Glenwood Springs area. Our original plan was to spend time in Glenwood Springs - hanging out at the springs, vapor caves, perhaps rafting or paragliding - but we ended up spending almost no time in that area.

The first thing we did after our longer-than-I-expected drive was find a campsite. We were fortunate and someone else hadn't shown up for their reservation the night before so the campsite hosts offered it to us. We earned quite a reputation as campsite stealers! We pitched our tent, ate some lunch and headed down to Aspen for the afternoon.

Amazingly, after almost 3 years in Colorado, Michael and I still had not made it out to the Maroon Bells - the most photgraphed site in Colorado. Although we'd never quite understood the allure, we did once we arrived. They were well worth the drive and we now see why they are so photographed. We hiked the "scenic loop trail" along the river that feeds Maroon Lake.
























We made it back to our campsite for a late but yummy dinner. The fire was stubborn so it was dinner by moonlight.

In the morning we broke camp fairly early and headed further west to Rifle Falls. The falls are pretty but we were disappointed to find some human intervention in the falls when we hiked to the top. We grilled a quick lunch at the picnic spots by the falls and then started back east.

















We did stop off in Glenwood Canyon for a hike up to Hanging Lake/Sprouting Rock. Beautiful hike. We then trekked back through Dillon and stopped at our favorite sushi place. We arrived home late Sunday evening.



















We dropped Jen off at the airport first thing on Monday morning and jumped into a new work week. Packed weekend - but it was oh-so-nice to get away.

View the full picture album here.