The stimulation for this annual trek back to the midwest is Bestemor’s birthday, and this year we are celebrating the 97th one of those. It’s been a lot of fun to have this date seemly set aside by everyone every summer for the past bunch of years, and this year has been no different….execpt for the way that we had to make it happen.

Due to schedules, Ahna and Ezra left a few days before I was able to make it out of town – which meant that it was the first time that  either one of us traveled alone with the little man. From all accounts, it was a relatively easy journey, with a few notes made for the next attempt. The afternoon after I dropped them at the airport was a moment or two of non-committal fun, including a Rockies baseball game with some friends from work, and a beer or two before heading home. Since it marked the first time that one of us traveled with Ezra alone, it also marked the first time that I was home alone without Ezra; and ‘alone’ was the perfect description of the feeling. I was amazed at how much I actually missed the two of them…

We reunited at the Minneapolis airport and immediately started the 2 hour drive down to the farm. On the road, we were able to experience the user-end of the scheduling and planning process of the MDOT…and I can positively tell you that it stinks. Three road closures and three detours marked the 90 mile stretch between the cities and the farm. Due to the aforementioned traffic, we arrived in northern Iowa a little later than we anticipated, and therefore weren’t able to stop by the farm that evening. Instead, we hung out at the hotel for a little while, then joined the Smith’s and the Bersagel-Braley’s for a nice dinner at the Subway/Burger King inside of the casino attached to the hotel.

The next day, we hit the farm hard. All day (after the morning nap), and all of us….totaling about 21 if I heard the number correctly. It was a thrill to be able to celebrate three different occasions all at once: Bestemor’s 97th birthday, Dave and Mary Jo’s 40th anniversary, and Ezra’s 1st baptism anniversary. The day was filled with the kids playing together and with lots and lots of yummy food. We celebrated all of this in the morning with a very special in-home church service given by Dave: it was really, really cool to see the whole family sitting in the living room of the farm together enjoying a beautifully crafted service.

We pulled the safety mats of home and headed for them there hills. Yes, we decided that it was high time that we spent our first night in a tent with Ezra and experienced the concept of camping with a baby. If you want the short version, here it is: most of the time it wasn’t nearly as hard as we thought it would be…but there were moments.

We left yesterday morning with a reservation for a tent site in the Rocky Mountain National Park (about 2.5 hours drive) and a car that seemed as packed as if we were trekking across country. It seems as though you add one person and you exponentially add more stuff (I think that sounds familiar). We stopped in Estes Park for a picnic by the small lake in town and then headed for our site to set up. We brought along our large tent, and a sun shade – which we used as a place for Ezra to play without sitting in the dirt…and it worked perfectly. After we set up camp, we headed back into town and hung out till dinner time. When we planned the trip, we gave up on trying to stay in camp for hours and hours then trying to cook dinner…we thought it would just be an easy meal to let someone else take care of while we got our feet wet with the experience.

We returned to camp, and started a fire with wood that the previous tenant of that spot left behind. We enjoyed being chased in circles by the smoke for nearly an hour before attempting to turn in for the night. We brought an air mattress to sleep on, which is great until anyone has to move. Our biggest mistake of the trip was trying to get Ezra to go to sleep before it was dark outside…he fought and fought it. He thought that being in the tent was just the coolest thing, and wanted to play with everything – which meant that he didn’t want to go to sleep. Once it became dark however, we were able to get him to sleep. Everyone slept fairly well throughout the night – as good as could be expected since it was our first night camping, we were on an air mattress, and it was 40 degrees outside.

We woke this morning and made some breakfast – eggs to be specific. It was great to see that all of our camping gear still worked as though it was used just last week; when in fact it has been two summers between uses. After breakfast, we joined about 10,000 mosquitos and hiked around Sprauge Lake and then a little up another trail before turning around because Ezra fell asleep while being carried. He stayed alseep all of the way back to the car, then until we drove down to Boulder, where we stopped for another picnic lunch.

The trip was good fun, and we are already planning our next excursion into the woods. We are hoping that after a couple of times, we are able to pair down what we are taking and streamline the operation. It’s not so much the packing or the space in the car as it is the unpacking….

Part 1: Sympathy For The Devil

When we woke up we decided to go for a hike, and after some discussion, we settled on a trek to the fire lookout tower on the top of Devil’s Head mountain. It’s located just west of town (about 1 hour by car due to the slow driving on the roads) and is a landmark spot on the front range. We haven’t done the hike together in several years, although two summers ago I went up with Tanner. We put Ezra in the pack and started out….since it was during his morning nap period, Ezra actually fell asleep in the backpack – which surprised us because of the movement in the pack due to the elevation increase in the trail – but he slept for about the last 30 minutes of the climb up.

Rewind just a bit to the first 10 minutes of hiking from the car…and you get to the point in the story were we stumble upon some Blue Columbine flowers. These are a real treat to find growing in the wild, and they are in full bloom for only a few weeks every year (see pictures below). It was the first time that I had ever seen one on a hike and they were just about perfect. The weather has been abnormally wet (at least compared to the last 10 years), so everything is very green and the wildflowers are out in force. We enjoyed the rest of the hike to the lookout, and spent only a few minutes on the top due to the temperatures being in the 60’s and very windy.

Part 2: Red, White, and Bust

The afternoon/evening plan was to meet up with my parents, Cyrilla and Tanner, and the Allens. It’s the traditional 4th of July gang, and we have celebrated together for each of the past 3 or 4 years. The town had big plans for activities for the kids, music, and fun stuff for the adults, then some fireworks. Alas, Mother Nature had different plans and the skies opened up on the whole are for the better part of the evening. The events at the park were cancelled, but the fireworks were still scheduled to appear as planned. After hanging out at Cyrilla’s house for several hours, we all headed to a spot to watch the fireworks that were supposed to go off at 9pm. 9:30 rolled around, and they finally started the show. The lackluster, boring show: one firework at a time, then a 20 second finally that featured 30 fireworks all of the same color being shot off at the exact same height.

There was a whole paragraph that originally sat here before the one that you are reading. It was about something that bothered me about certain decision making processes and outcomes that related to the 4th of July. After typing it and reading it, a little voice in the back of my head said that I should be afraid if it was actually published since this is a public blog. Therefore, I invite you to talk with me in person sometime about it….it’s really not that exciting, it just might be taken personally by some people.