The Pleiades- life is a journey

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Alpine Adventures: Stage 2

After one final night to ourselves at Lost Wonder, we headed up to Aspen via Independence Pass. It's only open in the summer, and we now know why. Parts of it aren't even two lane and nothing over 35 feet long fits because of how winding the road was. They don't even pretend The lines in the middle just mysteriously disappear at times! How festive that we do on the week of 4th of July!

Here we are at the top. I'm trying to groom some young photographers so that we make it into some of the photos. They are beginning to get it I think.

The pass is almost as high as Engineer Mountain at 12,095 feet!

Nothing like a summer snowball fight.

Sounds like a disaster to have a black football that is intended to be thrown in the dark but somehow this thing works with reflectors as long as you are willing to look like forest monsters so you don't get pelted in the face.

This picture says "life is good." To see your kids frolic in an Aspen grove is heaven to this Mama and says we've done some thing very right by our move to Colorado.

We stayed at a campground called Weller Campground which was situated in a beautiful shimmering grove of Aspens, right outside of Aspen, CO.

We spent the day in town. We visited a park where our kids looked nothing less than homeless having come stright out of the woods in probably the most pretentious town I have ever been to. All I could think was, "Damn, I forgot to pack the seersucker on this camping trip."

The boys played in a fountain in the sidewalk in downtown Aspen and although they were soaking wet in sweatpants and tennis shoes, they looked sort of clean. Next time I will be more prepared by bring ~~my bar of soap~~ a change of clothes for them.

They got to picnic up Castle Creek in t-shirts and bare bottoms while their pants dried in the sun. I found this funny, but they found it a bit embarrassing despite the remote and private location on the bank of the creek.

This valley is just southwest of the famous Maroon Bells and happens to be ungated and free to drive. Go figure Aspen charges for entrance in to public land that isn't even considered a National Park.

The boys picked out the biggest marshmallows for the trip.

These bad boys are roughly the equivalent of 4 regular marshmallows. Such peaceful and beautiful family time!

More to come...

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Alpine Adventures: Stage 1

Catching up with old Berry College friends is difficult when everyone is scattered to the wind, however there are times when the stars align and we can manage to get together. Ramu moved to Denver about 3 months ago and before Erik headed back east to Knoxville for a fellowship we literally had one weekend where all of us were with in driving distance of each other.

So began the McBrayer week long camping trip to the alpine forests of Colorado. We started at the Lost Wonder Hut of Monarch pass to meet up with Erik and Ramu and their families.

4 wheel drive road and a last minute dinner for the PA meant Bella got to come up to the cabin ahead of her parents with the Bergers. There wasn't room for everyone in the truck. She didn't mind the dust too much.

The Lost Wonder Hut stands in the shadow of Mt Aetna, sleeps 14 people and is a nice shelter out of the elements all year around. It also comes with paper products, a gas stove with oven, all the dishes you could possibly need and a brand new gas grill. A beautiful place.

No sign of mice but they would have had a hey day with the amount of stray cheerios we managed to scatter across the floor of the hut. This is Erik's wife Kristen with their two girls, Karlee and Morgan.

Aeneas and I we exploring the avalanche slide looking for spiders after breakfast.

This is Veronica, Ramu's wife with Isabella. She's not too fond of the Baby Bjorn.

However, she really hates it when she's strapped to JP and Mama is out of sight. I can't imagine why.

Someone forgot their truck up there.

Because Kristen is an overachiever and good like that, she carries both girls while her husband hikes ahead, shooting his pellet gun.

Taking a little hike

A little brake on the way

This was in a swamp on the hike. Does anyone else find this remarkable?!? Guess what it belongs to.

Come on. We haven't changed that much since our Berry days...

Nope. Just the same.

The boys loved this place.

Poker and whiskey in the wilderness. How cliche.

Aunt Chris and Uncle George along with Lindsay came up to hang one night.

Kristen and Ramu.

Look at this cute family!

Morgan and Mama Kristen

The world's awesomest dog, Auggie.

Of course the Berger boy would bring his treasure hunting tools. The creek was so cold, no one could stand it for more than a few minutes, even the Hulk there. No gold for us.

Patrick thought Morgan was really cool!

Karlee and her flower princess crown. I've got to spoil the girls when I've got them. A and P are hardly in to these.

Awesome fort that Justin and the boys made once the others left.

Lost Wonder Hut has playable instruments galore if you are so inclined.

No camping is complete without s'mores.

These two turned out to be best buddies.

More to come...

Sunday, July 7, 2013

A new chef moves in

Aeneas has finally reached the ripe age of learning to cook with Daddy. Of course his first pick for dinner was mac and cheese for the main course. No surprise there. It was a beautiful meal and the little guy did a great job.

This kid is a taster. He has to taste everything right down to the spices.

Here he is making his roux.

The table was set outside on the patio.

This happened to be during the week we were trying out gluten free hence the two pans of mac and cheese. In case you were wondering, we couldn't tell the difference between the rice and the wheat noodles.

He also learned that if you have a heart heavy main dish you have to round it out with something healthy. So we had a fruit salad with a delicious citrus juice sauce over top.

He even insisted on doing the dishes. At this rate, they will be making all the dinners by the time they hit the ravenous appetite stage of high school boys.