Ahhhhh, this trip was such a breath of fresh air – literally! Colorado fully exceeded my expectations and was unbelievably beautiful. Neither Daniel nor I had ever been to Colorado before, and this was also our first time to go on vacation with my family. So many wonderful memories were made!

The first leg of our journey took us through Amarillo to pick up my brother, Corey. He’s a meteorologist for KAMR, and an amazing one at that. We got a tour of his station, stood in front of the green screen and pointed at nothing, and even watched him do the weather live from inside the studio! Proud sister moment. :)

The next morning, we drove the rest of the way to Colorado and made it to our cabin, which I somehow managed to take ZERO PICTURES OF. *facepalm* Regardless, it was comfy and cute and had a terrific view! I’ll share some picture of the view from the front porch in my next post.

Our week was spent relaxing, watching movies, playing games, and taking in the scenery through several means, including whitewater rafting and hiking. Our first activity was taking the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad train from – you guessed it – Durango to Silverton. We had a front-row seat to mountain views and the rushing river from our open-air car, and it was an amazing experience!

Silverton, it turns out, is just baaaaarely a town. Definitely touristy, but it was easy to navigate and I was very impressed with the shopping. Almost every store carried genuinely cute, clever things I had never seen before, and the downtown walk through all the little shops really was enjoyable. Especially when all you had to do was glance up and see huge mountains towering above everything else around you. *sigh*

Can you imagine if that were your Main Street??

After we got back to the cabin, Daniel and Corey decided that they wanted to take me and Robyn on a hike to a spot they visited the night before. Little did I know how much further they would take us past the point they hiked to before, and how much I would hate everyone by the time we were done. Lol. The altitude was killing me, and I felt out of breath after going just a few yards. But we made it to the top of a pretty significant peak, and the view from the top was choice.

This is the face of a girl who realized she had to climb all the way back down and already hated everything after scaling a very steep mountain and almost dying.

But still. That view, right??

Part II coming soon!