The Last Hurrah Camping Trip (AKA Clear Lake in Colorado)

Dan and I decided that we ought to take one last camping trip before we're homebound for several months. (Although I wouldn't be surprised if Dan suggested camping with a one-month-old. :) We had a long weekend, so we headed north on a Friday morning to a lake near Silverton, CO, which for those of you who don't know about Silverton (apparently everyone in Albuquerque does), it is just north of Durango, CO.

Dan found a little lake called Clear Lake on Google Maps, and it was absolutely gorgeous. There were some wicked switchback roads that required lots of 4-wheel-drive in 1st gear, and me stepping out of the car several times to help Dan navigate. I was certainly nervous a few times, but the road never gave me any contractions so it couldn't have been too bad, right? :)

Here we are Friday afternoon. It was windy and chilly, hence the sweats.

Saturday morning Dan and Stella explored before Auggie and I woke up:

Stella loves water, so long as we're not involved:

Sleeping Auggie, all nestled up in the sleeping bags. (Don't worry, Mom, he was able to breathe. ;)

After we woke and breakfasted, we hiked up the side of the mountain. Dan and Stella hiked all the way to the ridge line while Auggie and I hung out by a giant rock. You probably can't see it very well, but our car is the speck just to the left of the smaller, left side of the lake. This gives you an idea of how great our campsite was. While we did have other people around until about 7pm on Friday night, no one showed up until well after 10:30am Saturday morning meaning that we had the lake and mountains to ourselves. It was spectacular!

Auggie and me:

Auggie loves all the buckles on our kid backpack.

Dan and Stella are the specks on the ridge just to the left of the two rocks in the center.

Flora and fauna:

 The view from the ridge:

The other side:

As we were leaving we had a visitor–a fox! Look just to the right of the road on the left side of the photo:

Left side of photo.. The fox was gorgeous!

The crazy switchbacks on our way out. This photo really doesn't do them justice.

Auggie learned a new word on this trip: "yeehaw!" What's funny is that Dan said it once while we were driving up to Clear Lake, and Auggie then continued to use it in context for the rest of the trip: