Colorado Day 10 - Last Day

Day Ten: Wednesday, September 10, 2014

After waiting for me to blow dry my hair, the natives were all quite restless, so we rolled out for Lake San Cristobal. Our hope was to use up the remaining worms and let Adam have another go at fishing since he's so excited about it right now. We went up and over to the middle part of the lake on the dirt road side. There is a little camping area that has a gravel beach with direct and easy access to the water. Alan set up the spinning rod for Adam with the worms we bought the other day for our Deer Lakes adventure. It was a bit of a long shot he said, given the spot (easy access=probably over fished) and the rig set up that he had... but it was a beautiful morning and worth a try.

View of the lake from our spot.

Despite all of that it took almost no time at all before a fish was on the line. Adam reeled it in and was pretty excited about the shiny rainbow trout he caught.  

The post-rain mountain sun was a little intense.

Fishing video...

He caught one more and then decided it was time to play. Adam grabbed a stick and pretended to fly-fish just like Daddy. He has the movements down perfectly. It sent Aaron into a happy dance on several occasions.... 

Adam pretended the algae catch was a fish... Aaron happy danced.

Classic Adam.

After a little while with no more fish we decided to free the worms and move on. Adam first had to play with them until they were near void of life... 

On our way out this man-van beauty was parked on the side of the lake and required documentation...

There were leftovers in need of consumption back at the cabin, so we headed back for lunch. After that we planned to take a really long walk all over town, knowing that all day tomorrow would be stuck in a car, and end it was another stop for ice cream in the park.

We started by walking up and around Pete's Lake, a pondish marsh at the end of the road we were staying on. The flowering grasses had such a strong, perfume-like smell it was almost overwhelming at times. 

Adam on the Pete's Lake trail.

Then we crossed over the highway up near the bakery and followed the scenic walking trail down next to the river.

And over the river, around to the park behind Poker Alice.

Where the boys played for a few minutes while Alan and I used the zoom on the camera to inspect some of the new houses that were built on the opposing cliff top.

Then down the street to the river access. It was beautiful that day, totally clear and very cold. The boys threw rocks for a few minutes then we were off again for ice cream.

Our next stop was San Juan Soda Co. for ice cream. The same two women are always behind the bar at that place. I can remember back when they were teenagers working there. One of them is pregnant now and I remember when the other one was pregnant as well. Small town life… how fun (I think) would it be to wake up every day and run an ice cream gift store in one of the most beautiful places? I could probably handle that. Of course they’ve been here their whole lives and may not know any different, so unless Alan and I go on tilt one day and head for the hills (aka rocky mountains), I’m not sure the small town life would be as easy a transition as I imagine in my mind… though we would adapt and overcome, at least three out of the four seasons.

The soda fountain bar.

With our ice cream in hand we walked across the street to the town park and let the boys play on their second playground of the day. They really like this one and have wild imaginings that I can’t even begin to describe here. Suffice it to say that in this trip alone they’ve included sewer systems, really fast RVs, mines, booby traps, ambushes, snack machines, and countless others that go way over my head. There were a few other people there today but the children were much younger and chose to turn the sand volleyball court into a temporary sandbox instead of play on the playground.

After a long while we moved on again, but I wanted to stop by the Lake City Shirt Co. and look around. I know I have a ton of Lake City shirts and probably don’t need another, but I wanted to look anyway. 

And of course I found one I liked, while the boys collected more pine cones outside. With a new shirt and fistfuls of pine cones we walked back to the cabin. I needed to start packing and get things organized to better accommodate a speedy morning departure. But before that Adam and I ran up to the grocery store to get some meat to put in our pasta sauce for supper. 

When we got back the boys played outside for a good hour and a half while I packed and Alan sat in the recliner getting high on the mountain air that was flowing through the cabin. It was nice to have all the windows and doors open and let the mountain breeze run through. I leisurely collected all of our stuff in the living room and organized meals for the road and what needs to be done in the morning. Alan started working on supper and we all ate a big hearty meal of pasta, meat sauce, creamed corn, and the boys had bananas and yogurt too. It was a lot of food.

After they finished we decided to walk down to the schoolyard one last time. If you are counting that’s three playgrounds in one day. We hit all of the major public playgrounds in Lake City. On our way we encountered several fire truck vehicles and a group of volunteer firemen who had stretched five inch hose down the center of Silver Street from the school to the bank. They were apparently testing it. Alan gets such a kick out of watching small town volunteers. The first guy we passed had a full beard and possibly more hair than me. Most of them had at least half of their impeccably clean black bunker gear suits on and there was more than one who would stop in the middle of what they were doing to laugh out loud.

On our way back for the night we encountered a few male mule deer leisurely eating the clover on the sides of the road. They had large velvety antlers and didn't seem too worried about us...

I really had fun this trip. I didn’t much care for getting rained on a few times, but it’s all part of the mountain experience and I know that the boys had fun and memories were in the making… so it was all worth it. Alan seemed to get enough fishing out of his system to last him a while. We were able to do the Alpine Loop and show the boys the train too. I saw a bald eagle and several marmots and got to eat ice cream in the park more than a couple of times. I think all my boxes were ticked. Adam caught a few fish and saw a couple of moose. In fact, everyone’s boxes were ticked except Aaron’s hope of seeing a black bear. We know there was one around a few times in the night and Alan saw one while fishing, but Aaron didn’t get to see one himself, but there's always next year. I am so thankful that all three of my guys like this town and area. I hope we will return here year after year and continue to instill a love of the mountains in them.

Tomorrow we will head south out of Lake City toward South Fork, the end of the Silver Thread Scenic Byway. Then we turn west toward Walsenburg, passing through Del Norte and Alamosa (with the Great Sand Dunes in the visible distance). Our goal is to get deep into Texas by tomorrow evening and home around lunch the following day.