I need to finish posting our photos from Colorado — it’s been nearly three weeks since we’ve been back and my memory is fading fast. Like, here’s a picture of a lake that we hiked to on our Big Hike #3:
Oh yeah! It was called Lily Pad lake! There were two of them… the relatively lily pad-less one above, and a smaller one nearby:
Next thing you know, we end up taking a gondola to the top of a mountain in Breckinridge in order to tour a big, expensive summer fun park!
It was the last bit of fun Mr. P would be having in awhile, as the following day was his first 50-mile race ever, the Leadville Silver Rush 50 Run. What a doozy of a debut. The race started at 10,200 feet altitude and climbed considerably through the fabled trails of Leadville. We were staying about 60 minutes from the starting line and the race started at 6am, so rather than wake up at 4am to go with Mr. P in his rental car and then essentially be stuck at the starting line (since I was not a “second driver” on his rental), I rented a second car so Little Boy and I could sleep late and drive to the aid stations to cheer Mr. P on to victory! (By victory, I mean completion… which is all he hoped for).
Little Boy and I arrived at the aid station around mile 38 way too early — almost 90 minutes ahead of Mr. P’s optimistic “best guess.” Honestly, it was easier to find than I imagined. We sat along the trail with other runners’ crew under this sign:
Welcome to Leadville
The bugs were feasting on me. It was hard to keep Little Boy amused, although he might have been just relieved that we weren’t hiking. Finally Mr. P appeared!
He complained about his knee hurting but said he otherwise felt okay. Little Boy was excited to see him and insisted on taking pictures.
12 miles to go
After wishing him well, Little Boy and I drove to the finish line, where we cheered on the runners and played Uno, fully aware it would take Mr. P several more hours to finish. Finally, he came into view. I had urged Little Boy to run in with him to the finish, but he got suddenly shy.
And that, essentially, was the end of the vacation. The next day (Monday), we drove back to Denver and returned to Boston (traveling home went much better than our trip to Denver). It was a low-key vacation, consistently pleasurable and overall relaxing. (The relaxation and acclimation to altitude lasted about a week. I was sprinting up hills at record speeds and feeling like Superwoman! Then, vacation euphoria as well as my red blood cell count returned to normal.)
