Vacation Part 2

On Thursday during vacation, Ryan and I decided to go on a bike ride while everyone else fished.

The trail we rode took us to the Moose Visitor Center that was a couple miles away from the campground.  The Center has a giant stuffed moose in the middle of the room and lots of information and pictures about wildlife in the area.  Apparently, the area is considered the moose country of Colorado and as I was mainly interested in moose (because I had only seen one moose in my life from far away and that was on the second day of this trip), I took a picture of what their scat is supposed to look like to help me in my moose hunting.

They weren't lying about it being moose country because we found some moose scat right on the bike trail!

Later that evening, we all decided to go moose hunting.  Several area guides and campers had told us where the best places to spot moose were so we all piled in a vehicle and took off.  We loved the beautiful scenery but still weren't seeing any moose.

Here I made everyone pose like they were about to fall in.

And here I actually about fell in.

We drove by a tree that is randomly decorated with Christmas ornaments.  We asked the owners of a local shop about the origin of it but they said people had been decorating it since before they moved there.

We saw some deer.

And finally we saw some moose! 

We actually ended up seeing several moose that night!  We were getting tips from all kinds of people on where the moose were and we drove all around to see all of them.  I didn't get many good pictures with my camera but I'm hoping others in the family did.  It was so amazing to see them!
The next day, we played games, fished, and relaxed.

Later that night, Amy and Dion came up to try their first camping weekend with Lily.

The next morning we decided to go horseback riding.  We went super early in the morning hoping that we might see more wildlife.  We didn't see any but the ride was beautiful and we had a great time.

That afternoon we played games, barbequed, watched a movie, and napped. 

The end of the week came much too quickly and we were all up bright and early the following morning to head home.  We were all so wiped out, but I can tell you I wasn't ready for the week to end.  I had so much fun camping with the family and it was such a beautiful area with so much wildlife.  I feel so lucky that we got to have this experience and also that I not only married such a wonderful person, but that I married into such a wonderful family.