I got back about 5:30 yesterday evening. Overall it was a good trip, although an unusual one for me. We stayed almost completely within Colorado, just passing a bit into Wyoming yesterday on our way home. That part was kind of nice- we only drove 900 miles all week, which is probably near my average just to reach my destination on vacations! We also “base camped” at just two campgrounds, so we didn’t have to break down camp and set up every day like I often do.

I got to explore an area of Colorado that I really hadn’t spent much time in, even though I’ve lived here for nearly 28 years. My daughter doesn’t like hiking but we did several shorter hikes, up to about 5 miles roundtrip. It was very hot, even in the mountains, so that sapped the energy level even more. Really we spent a lot of time just reading & taking it easy. This was the most laid-back vacation I’ve taken in many years.

One good thing about the heat was that the lakes we were camped at were much warmer than usual for this time of year. The photo attached is my daughter swimming in Pearl Lake last Sunday (the 24th). I think that there was only one full day of the trip that we didn’t go swimming, and that was a real plus (my daughter loves the water).

Getting back home kind of sucks, though. Denver’s still in a horrible heat wave- my house was up to 87 degrees F/ 31 C before it finally started cooling off last night, and at midnight it was still a miserable 83 F/28 C. I only got about 4 hours of sleep last night. The heat didn’t help, but I also have a lot of things on my mind right now.