The day that rained. 6/25/2025

 Wednesday, June 25, 2025

Today, Joy had gymnastics in the morning, so we took JJ on his first fishing excursion. (Note the sky!)

Upon arriving at Manitou Park Recreation Area in Woodland Park, CO, we had some great fishing luck! Lillia and Gavin both caught a fish within the first two minutes of casting their rods. Gavin then caught a second fish almost immediately. The luck ended there, though, as that was the grand total of catches for the day, leaving Gavin as the big winner. JJ loved seeing the fish in the net!

Casting lessons with Uncle Victor:

Casting on his own:

See the birds in the background here? My theory is that when they flew in and disturbed the water, they also scared the fish away because once they arrived, we didn't catch anything else!

As you can see in the pictures, the clouds were rolling in quickly. We fished for less than an hour before we saw the first lightning strike. Since Victor had sent us all the lightning safety information, we knew that getting to our car was the most important thing to do. We considered sitting in the car and waiting for it to pass, but the radar didn't look great, and we decided to try to drive to Manitou Springs and see if the sun was shining there. It was just starting to sprinkle when we arrived, so Victor and Gavin hiked down a short hill to fish on Fountain Creek. 

However, the weather turned quickly, and yet again, we found ourselves in a hailstorm! I opened the door to the car to take a video--it actually hurt!

So we scrapped the fishing idea and headed home to get ready for the Colorado Springs Switchbacks game. After eating some tacos at Dos Santos, we started walking toward the stadium. If you've been following the last two days, you know what came next. That's right, the rain started just as we entered the stadium. We found our seats and were glad to see they were under cover. 

A group of men parachuted in carrying various flags of the military branches, and lastly, a Switchbacks flag. We wished it was AJ jumping but it was still really cool. 

We cheered for the team as they introduced the players, then sang the national anthem. The players lined the field ready to start the game when… You guessed it. Lightning strikes! Rain delay. We decided to drive toward home since we weren't sure how long the delay would last. On the way home, we stopped for ice cream (obviously!) and got to see a beautiful double rainbow. The pictures never do it justice, but it was amazing! As we finished eating our ice cream, we checked social media and found out that the gates were open and they were letting people back in the stadium.

JJ and AJ headed home to relieve the babysitter and have a decent bedtime (AJ jumps early in the morning). Kristina and the four of us headed back to the game finally. We missed the first 10-15 minutes, but enjoyed watching the Colorado Springs Switchbacks dominate the San Antonio FC. Until they didn't. Despite controlling the ball for much of the game, San Antonio was the team that was able to finish. The Switchbacks lost 0-2 in a disappointing end. Here are the soccer fans:

Despite the loss, they still launched fireworks after the game!

I made Victor pose for this sign to show his mom:

So the rain kept us from enjoying some parts of our day, but in the end, we had a great day filled with fun memories (and wet feet).

Manitou Incline 6/24/2025

 Tuesday, June 24th, 2025

Today was the Manitou Incline day. Doesn't everyone want to walk up 2,768 steps for FUN? We all agreed that we would go our own pace and not wait for anyone. Gavin and Lillia are ready for the challenge!

Me, on the other hand, I'm planning my early exit here:

Here is the whole gang ready to take on the Incline. AJ carried Joy on his back while the rest of us just carried water.

The views on the way up were amazing. And JJ (7 years old) was super amazing: He climbed the mountain completely on his own and made it the whole way to the top without any help!

Everyone tells me the views at the top were amazing, but I never had the privilege of enjoying the view.

Here I am taking the 2,768th step, and placing 8th among the 8 hikers. In the distance, lightning strikes began almost immediately upon my arrival. So my dead legs got me this far.

Then posed for this picture:  

Then, without any rest for me (Everyone else had 30-45 minutes of rest!), we began running down the mountain as fast as we could. The rain was pounding and we were absolutely soaked. Then it turned cold, and the rain became hail. We kept running as best we could. When running seemed too dangerous due to the rocky terrain, we walked, but did our best to keep moving. Lightning safety (and our resident military guru) tells you that if you're up on a mountain, the best thing you can do is descend as quickly as possible to get away from possible strikes. Victor made sure to run at least 50 feet ahead of me so that if one of us got struck by lightning, at least our kids would still have one parent.  A day late and a dollar short, Victor sent us a bunch of lightning tips the following day. Thankfully, we were smart enough to know to get down the mountain asap.

By the time we reached the bottom, the storm had cleared, and the weather was gorgeous again. 

Joy loved the backpack so much, she stayed in it even after the wet hike down!

It's always an adventure with our family. This was awesome, but also dumb. We will do better with watching for storms in advance. (Foreshadowing Wednesday's blog post) At one point, an Army helicopter circled near the top of the mountain. In retrospect, we think they may have been trying to warn us hikers of the impending storm. We were clueless!

Garden of the Gods 6/23/25

 Monday June 23rd, 2025

We slept in after our late night board gaming. Once we finally got moving, we headed to Garden of the Gods which we read time and time again was the best thing to do in Colorado Springs. The views did not disappoint!

Day 2: Colorado Arrival

Today is an easy 4 hour drive to get us to Colorado Springs. We weren’t in a hurry so we stopped for some fun along the way. 

Buffalo Bill Statue:

JJ’s Travel Stop for fuel before we see the real JJ:

We’re almost there but had to do one last stop for our favorite fast food restaurant before arriving:

Finally!!!! 

Enjoyed dinner cooked by Kristina then a very short sunset hike to Ute Park complete with yoga poses and handstands.

And dropping siblings over the edge:

Finally, ended the night with a “quick” game of Game of Thrones which AJ managed to win since he was the only one that actually knew and understood the rules. Game finally ended after midnight. 🥱 

Road trip to Colorado

 In an attempt to beat our longest drive record (PA to Iowa), we set off at 4:30am to see how far we could get driving west. Our car was packed to the brim and I was mad about not having a minivan. (It was a good run for the Sienna: 2011-2024 and nearly 300,000 miles on it!) When I buy another car, I’m getting something huge! We had to make some important decisions to make the Highlander work for us. We cut out two kids (sorry Jared and Alisia), the cooler, and some extra blankets to make room for necessities, like the fishing pole and the guitar. 

With teenagers, they think these types of pictures are hilarious. Obviously, Victor and I are not amused. 

About 12 hours of driving put us in Saint Louis so we stopped for a picnic lunch at the Gateway Arch National Park. 

Lillia has been working on a new skill just for this moment. She nailed it. 

She also showcased her photo editing skills after some grumpy man didn’t want to take our family picture for us, we had to merge two pictures. 

When I asked her to edit it slightly, I got this:

Again, she nailed it. 

Kansas was a very exciting place to drive through, as seen below:

Somewhere in the middle of Kansas, we found an amazing Mexican food place called El Potro that had some delicious queso and excellent dinner options. Here’s another picture of me scolding my unruly daughter who doesn’t like to take a picture without trying to sneak in a middle finger. 

Finally, nearly 1400 miles later, we stopped at Quinter, KS. On the town map outside of our hotel, we noted they had 4 churches and 2 ball fields. And one hotel that had space for us. (Thank you to Hotel Tonight for making last minute hotel stays easy to find!)

4:30am EST to 12:50am CST  (20+ hours)

7 states

1360 miles

Still not there…