This summer, we decided to take a roadtrip to Durango, Colorado. Our route brought us through Lake Powell and then past Mesa Verde on the way home. Get ready for a picture overload, because everything about this trip was beautiful! The scenery was A++.
First stop, Page, AZ! This is a picture from my morning run. I just randomly saw a sign for a lookout point and was not disappointed!
I'm so glad we opted for a tour of Antelope Canyon. We weren't sure if it was a good idea given how hot it would be, but it ended up being totally fine. Antelope Canyon was both shaded and stunning! I've truly never seen anything like it. It looks like huge, frozen waves of sand.
Antelope Canyon is sacred for the Native American people who live in the area, so we were given some rules about no touching, no shouting....and no peeing. Well, three quarters of the way through the canyon, Owen started wiggle dancing and telling us that he had to pee! I asked our tour guide if I could hike him out to the end of the canyon to pee in the open sand, to which he said no. In addition to it being highly disrespectful, he also informed me that we (and he!) could get a hefty fine if anybody saw the peeing. Oof...London Eye 2.0, here we go. We had the same debate about whether to have him wait, or pee in a water bottle, or have an accident on the sacred grounds..no good options.
This time, the water bottle won. I knew the worst thing would be if he had accident inside the canyon, so I grabbed his dino water bottle and quickly hiked him out. I had him pee right into the water bottle as clandestinely as possible. I felt a little sheepish carrying a pee-filled water bottle back through the rest of the canyon, but you gotta do what you gotta do. It was also a bit of a chore remembering not to drink from it too, lol ew.
After Antelope Canyon, we went swimming in Lake Powell before driving the rest of the way to Durango. Don was the only one that had been to Lake Powell before, so the kids and I were stoked to see what the hype is all about. Swimming in the lake was one of the highlights of the trip. 10/10 would recommend!
Auggie's pose :).
Just on the way out of town is...Horseshoe bend! The coolest viewpoint ever. The kids were such troopers on this hike. It was an unshaded, three quarter of a mile hike in 107 degrees. Yikes! But with a lot of Gatorade in hand, we made it. And it was worth it!
Durango, Durango, Durango! We've thought a lot about Durango over the years, ever since Don was recruited for a job there after fellowship. And we really considered it. We've always kind of wondered what Durango was like and what our lives would have been like had we chosen it instead of Pittsburgh.
Durango is a small-granola-outdoor-mountain-ski town. It's really beautiful and fun to visit, but I'm glad we chose Pittsburgh. Don says he could have lived there if it were just him though 😏.
Our first stop in Durango had to be the Durango-Silverton train for Owen! This is one of the trains that he knew and recognized from his train books at home. It was really exciting for him to see it in real life! We got to watch it depart from the station and blow its whistle multiple times.
The cutest part was Owen fumbling the name of the train a little bit when he shouted, "It's the Durangoton-Silver Train!" Now we all call it the Durangoton-Silver and love it.
Acai bowls for life!
Some kids found a gardener snake at the park, and brave Auggie held it! He wanted to be sure I documented it in the blog.
In the afternoon, we drove to a Lemon Lake to go kayaking. It was a new experience for the boys, and they loved it! Auggie was nervous for his safety at first, especially since we'd been talking about the stormy clouds. But once we got settled in, he was a super fan.
Auggie got so brave, in fact, that he jumped into the ice cold lake! We warned him, but he still wanted to do it. After the first jump, he then proceeded to do two more surprise jumps off the back of Don's kayak!
We spent the evening in the natural hot springs. They had so much fun bouncing from one spring to another, finding the ones that weren't too hot.
Day 2 - Silverton. We originally wanted to take the train from Durango to Silverton, but the shortest train ride was five hours. That didn't seem like a good idea after we'd just roadtripped to get here. We opted for an hour drive instead.
In Silverton, we saw the train one more time after it parked. Owen wanted to watch it come and go, which was to be expected. The rest of the day was filled with old town vibes, mining for "gold", and the most scenic hike.
On the way home from Durango, we took an hour and a half detour to get a peek at Mesa Verde. We couldn't do the actual tours because the boys were too young to scale the required ladders. But it was still worth it to see the cave dwellings from afar. I vaguely remember them from when I was little. So neat!
A quick stop at Powell again was just what we needed to break up the long drive home. We weren't planning on spending time swimming, but of course, the boys had other plans. So we ended up just letting them swim in their underwear.
While we were at the beach, we met a German family who was spending a few weeks in America. We chatted for about an hour, and now we text each other over WhatsApp. Meeting new people from all over the world is one of my all time favorite parts of traveling!
Underwear Owen!!
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