Waterton Canyon

Now that the weather is finally consistently warm and sunny (well, except for the afternoon thunderstorms), we are starting to think about getting outside.

I had made plans to visit my friend Julie who lives in southwest Denver area this morning, so we decided to tack on a "hike" at Waterton Canyon afterwards. Bill and Nancy asked to tag along, which ended up being really nice as Sam was laid low by an ugly flu bug (he was still sound asleep when we left at 9:30 this morning!). 

I say "hike" because the trail is essentially a wide dirt road with little to no elevation gain. It occurred to me to pack the geocaching travel bugs we've collected in Kauai, Copper Mountain and Mexico as my geocaching app showed a lot of caches along the route.

We found a few that were just little Easter eggs, so no room to leave a travelbug. My app showed that there was one on a spur trail that looked big enough to hold a few treasures, so we headed that direction. My GPS led us near a big tree, but then it was up to us to home in on the cache. After a few seconds I heard Ryan cheer and looked over to see him holding the container - his first solo geocache find!

We signed the log, traded some swag and left a travel bug. The boys were starting to complain of being hungry (it had, after all, been a whole 20 minutes since they last ate) so we said we would keep our eyes open for a good picnic spot along the trail.

We next came upon a family of geese just parked by the side of the trail. Mama and Papa were hissing to warn us to keep our distance, so we did.

A little ways farther we found an actual picnic area, so we spread out our lunches and took a break. Once tummies were filled we continued on the trail. I knew the boys were starting to sag and we still needed to hike back the way we came - but I also knew I was THISCLOSE to another geocache.

We found a shady spot along the trail where the boys and Bill and Nancy could watch fisherman casting for trout, and I headed off on my quest. Good thing I didn't try to bring the rest of the family, as this is what the trail looked like:

The view from the top of the hill was quite impressive - all that infrastructure is aquaducts, and the water was flowing today.

The geocache had only been placed a few weeks before so it was right where it was supposed to be, and full of swag.

I left the travel bug we had picked up in Kauai back in October, grabbed these two little friends for Ryan and Jack and headed back.

The boys were so excited about their snakes, but it was obvious that everyone was ready to get out of the sun. Jack was fading fast so Bill and I took turns carrying him back to the car. Bill and Nancy took Jack home to nap while Ryan and I went to run errands - only this is what I saw moments after we got on the road! I guess he enjoyed the hike.