Tag: doomsday is family time

Paint Mines

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It doesn’t look like much, it’s always windy and it’s in the middle of nowhere, but this is a fun and easy family hike. Rebecca is a night owl, which means she sleeps in every morning. Today I woke her up at 2pm (yes, 2pm) to go hiking with us. She was grumpy and didn’t want to go, but I promised her she’d feel better once she was outside.
When we got there the parking lot was full so we had to park on the side of the road. No worries about social distancing though, as the trails are wide and even with a full lot we only passed people a handful of times.

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The goal today wasn’t to get in mileage or elevation gain, but to just get outside. You aren’t supposed to scramble on the rock formations (to preserve them) so here are some highlights we were able to get without damaging the structures:

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And some pictures of the landscape

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We got in about 2.5 miles of walking and 300’ of elevation gain. Oh, and it took about half an hour of hiking, but eventually Rebeca’s sour mood turned upside down and she enjoyed herself!

Afterwards we went to Big R looking for chicks, but they were out (and so is everyone else).  So we drove home and I sent the girls to Raising Cane’s for dinner while Steffan and I put the skid rack back on my truck:  The girls love Sweet Tea and I’d never had their food before, so it was a win/win.

Red Rock Open Space

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I took the girls to Red Rocks today to get out side.  While they are fond of staying inside and playing on their phones (etc.) I suspect they’re beginning to get a bit of cabin fever.  The parking lot was full when we arrived, but the nice thing about trailheads is once the parking lot is full, no one else can enter, so social distancing takes care of itself.  There were signs asking people to practice social distancing

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Because of where we ended up parking we decided to do the loop backwards, starting instead by the pond.

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We continued past all the rock climbers and did a bit of scrambling ourselves.

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I took the girls to see the landfill.  I’d never really mentioned it to them before and they were curious as to why the city would pick it’s most beautiful location to dispose of trash, but on the bright side it looks like they’re trying to clean it up.

Next we hiked up the quarry

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and then made our way back to the truck.  There were a lot of people on the trails today but social distancing was no problem at all with the wide trails and lots of open space.  I think we need to make hiking as a family a bi-weekly thing as long as we’re still allowed to be outside… I fear it won’t be long before our parks and open spaces are closed as well, which is truly a shame because it’s how I keep my mental and physical health…

We got in about 3 miles and 750′ of elevation gain in today.

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