July 28, 2013

Howdy partners and welcome to the wild wild west. We were delighted to spend last weekend with the Lacny Family, who graced us with their presence for a few days in Boulder, Colorado, before heading up to Beaver Creek to relax and play in the Mountains. It was really wonderful to get to spend some quality time with Uncle Tom, Aunt Lynette, Christopher and Amy! So, now I’m going to tell you all about it! Sit back, relax and enjoy the show.

Last friday evening, Jake and I had our Date Night extravaganza. At that same time, the Lacny clan were on an airplane heading our way. Their plan was to land in Denver at about 11PM friday, stay in Boulder through Monday morning, and head up to the mountains until the next friday. We had a whole number of fun plans in our back pocket to entertain them while they were here.

So Saturday morning came, with tons of sunshine. We planned to chauffeur everyone around Boulder for the day. This way, they could enjoy sightseeing and not have to worry about anything. We picked them up around 9:45AM from their hotel, the lovely Courtyard Marriot, which has been graced with the presence of my family a number of times. We were ALL starving so we drove over to one of our all-time-favorite places, The Walnut Cafe (also known as South Side if in SOBO). We enjoyed every morsel of yummy food and then headed out to pearl street to enjoy the art fair and entertainment that can only come from pearl street. We meandered through bookstores, art stores, live music / entertainment acts and much more. The street performances were on-point, and so was the sun. We could only withstand the heat for about 2 hours before we decided to head toward cooler pastures. Amy and Chris really wanted to check out the Celestial Seasonings, which is also conveniently located about 3 blocks from our house, so that was our next destination.

The tour was really fun and refreshing! Jake and I have been on this tour probably a dozen times with all the people that come to visit, because its super fun, super close and FREE. It is always entertaining to walk through the tour and learn about how Celestial Seasonings tea is prepared, and why its so special. The little tea shop at the end is also super cute, and everyone really enjoyed it! Lots of souvenirs were purchased and lots of tea (of course!).

After the tour, our clan was pretty wiped out. We decided to take them back to our place for a little R & R. Jake and I thought of a perfect plan for dinner that night, because it was really beautiful outside and we had lots of mouths to feed. We decided to do homemade pizzas on the grill. The goal is pretty simple. We make the dough from scratch and then everyone gets to choose what kinds of toppings they want on their pizza. And we rarely stick with conventional pizzas. So Amy and Chris were responsible for determining what kind of pizza we were going to be indulging, while Uncle Tom crashed on the couch for a well-deserved nap and Aunt Lynette helped us prep food. We realized (pretty quickly) that we didn’t have any ingredients, so Amy and I drove to the store to pick up the odds and ends. Since Amy is almost 16, I let her drive which was really nice (I am not a huge fan of driving).

So with pizza-making underway, Uncle Tom sleeping ‘soundly’ on the couch, we had a really nice afternoon. Our pizzas were canadian bacon / cheese / peppers on one and steak fajita on the other. They were both pretty darn amazing (its all in the crust). We sat outside on the deck and enjoyed a lovely afternoon in Boulder. After dinner, we decided to head out to Chataqua Park, which is a GORGEOUS MUST-SEE for anyone visiting Boulder. Its pretty much the most heavily populated and most noticeable landmark in Boulder, since it is the access to the Flatiron Mountains. Aunt Lynette was really wiped out by then, so we dropped her off for a nap at the hotel, and Chris, Amy and Uncle Tom (and us) went for a little hike in Chataqua. It was a GORGEOUS evening, and we even got super close to a deer on the trail. We hiked for about an hour and then decided that the evening would be rounded out with a trip to Sweet Cow. We all indulged on root beer floats, various combinations of homemade ice cream and sundae’s and then turned in for the night. We had planned to go White Water Rafting very early the next morning, so we didn’t want to stay out too late.

Sunday came (far too soon) for all of us. We had to wake up at 5:30AM to get to the rafting place by 8AM. The plan was to pick up the Lacny clan at 6:45, giving us just enough time to make it up there by 8. However, when we pulled into the hotel parking lot, we found that the Lacny clan overslept, and were all still zonked out by 6:45. So we thought for sure we would be late (or miss the boat). We were very impressed by their speediness getting out to us (only about 15 minutes) and we zipped off into the mountains.

We managed to pull in at 8:05AM which is VERY impressive for how far we had to go, and then the fun really began. All of us suited up in wetsuits and/or splash coats (except for Chris), and we got our lifevests, helmets and water shoes on. We felt a little silly in our gear, but boy we were glad to have it. The water in Colorado rarely gets above 40 degrees and generally in White Water Rafting, you will get wet. Once we were all prepped, we got on the fun-bus (which was painted royal blue) and headed to the ‘drop-in’ location about 15 minutes away.

Once at the drop-in point, we met with our boat “leader” and learned some basic drills for safety and maneuvering. If you have ever been white water rafting before, then you may already know that generally there are long periods of lulls between rapids. Sometimes you could be casually strolling along in your raft for 30 minutes at a time between the fun adventurous parts. But out here, in Clear Creek Canyon, there are no lulls. The creek is known as “Boogy Water” because it never slows down, and is at an 8000 foot incline over several miles, so its always moving pretty fast. The other feature that is very common out in Colorado waters are all of the LARGE rocks/boulder scattered throughout the creek. They are not typical of others in that they are super sharp and EVERYWHERE. To our surprise, we were told that rocks are our friend and we use them to maneuver through, around, over rapids. This meant that we had to be ready for anything and constantly paddling our hearts out.

The raft consisted of the 6 of us plus our leader, Zach. Jake and Chris were our two men in the front, Amy and I were in the middle, Tom and Lynette were after us, and then the leader was in the back. Jake, being super loud, was ordered to shout out commands that our leader called so that we could paddle in sync. Its actually pretty easy to remember since you only ever paddle forward or back. The hard part is doing it altogether as one, since that can be the difference between success and failure (falling out / tipping over).

We were off, and boy was it adventurous. We went over about 20 rapids in total, 13 of them were considered Class IV. At first I was pretty scared but after we got over a few rapids, I was hooked! I felt so confident and comfortable (and was by far the best paddler of our group!). I think that it is all the paddling I have to do on our sailboat that has made me super strong and effective out in the raft. We had a few close calls of falling out, but we all managed to keep ourselves aboard. Chris definitely got the brunt of the water (in his face) but we were all pretty much soaked by the end. We rafted for about 2 hours, stopping halfway to jump into the creek at a really cool area. Amy and Jake were the only brave souls taht attempted that feat, as the rest of us were either too wussy or too cold (or both!)

The tour bus picked us up and brought us back to retrieve our vehicles, clothes and photos (which they provided). We all had so much fun and the photos turned out GREAT! By the time we were fully clothed and dry, it was only 11:30AM but we hadn’t really eaten all morning so we were starving! Plus all that paddling helped work up an appetite, so we headed down to Golden for lunch and Coors Brewery Tour. We had lunch at a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant and we ate like pigs (all of us) and relaxed outside on the mainstreet. I think everyone was ready for a nap by then, because we were lagging heading back to the Coors Tour. When we reached the line and found that it would be over 2 hours to wait, we decided to skip it and head back for naps. All of us pretty much crashed as soon as we were back and slept for about 3 hours.

That night, we decided to do a picnic on Flagstaff mountain and watch the sunset. If you have visited us before, then you probably already know that this is one of our standard tour locations. We went to the Boulder Whole Foods, which is now the largest in the country, and feasted on the smorgasbord of foods…sushi, indian, salad, chicken, sammies, chips, ramen and ice cream sammies for dessert. It was another beautiful evening and the sunset was magnificent up there. We hung out for several hours before heading back down to our respective dwellings, but another lovely night in Boulder.

Monday morning came around and we met up with the Lacny’s for breakfast before they headed up to their next destination. It was a really fun weekend and so great to get to know these guys better since we rarely get to see them. Can’t wait for their next visit to CO! Don’t forget to scroll through the images at the very top in the large gallery!