Look What We Found

Last week we had the wonderful opportunity to go with my parents up to Grand Lake, Colorado for a week in a cabin. Grand Lake is a popular get-away place for folks here on the front range as it offers mountain lakes, a small town feel, access to the Rocky Mountain National Park, fishing….and it’s only a little more than two hours away. This was our first time spending any amount of time up there, and it was the first – of what will hopefully be many – time that we had that vacation cabin experience.

On the stunning drive up there, I commented to Ahna that outside of relaxation, the only thing that I really wanted out of the week was the chance at seeing a moose. While I have been able to see just about every other wild animal that the Rockies have to offer, I have never seen a moose in it’s own habitat. Cue up the first hike that we went on after unpacking. About 50 feet from the front door of the cabin was a trailhead that lead right into the national forest. Ahna, Ezra, and I started down the path; and not more than 25 feet into our first hike on our first day…standing right in the middle of the trail….was a moose. Four thoughts immediately ran through my mind: 1) wow, how majestic of an animal is that and how lucky are we! 2) Holy crap, I intentionally left the camera in the cabin and sure enough, here we are…. 3) Dang, that thing is huge. 4) We best move away a little bit and give it some room as they are rumored to have the potential to be a little aggressive in defending themselves. So, as any good spouse would surely do, I ran to the cabin to get the camera (on the way, I reminded Ahna to grab Ezra and back away).

After hanging around for a little while just watching the moose eat, get tired, and bed down; we finished our now shorter hike with a little side trip up to a good view of the lake. We hung out here for a few minutes before being chased back into the cabin by the mosquitoes, but we were able to get some of my favorite photos of the week of Ezra.

On the second day of the trip, we rented a boat in the morning and spent a while driving all around Grand Lake. Ezra really enjoyed being in the boat, and especially enjoyed every opportunity he had to pilot. His favorite part? Making a super tight circle at speed (thus making the rest of us mostly queezy) and hitting our own wake as fast as we could get going.