The HENDRICKSON Family: Colorado Day 2

Thursday, July 30th

On day 2 we decided to just stay around the cabin and do cabin things.... (We also knew Mom would need to take it easy from her fall the day before. Her head was hurting and she was not feeling well.)

The kids had a great time just playing in the rocks, trees, dirt, flowers, mountains, and forest.

Some other family members who had been at the cabin a few weeks before us must have had some air guns because we found their ammo all over the ground around the cabin. The kids and Dad made a game of trying to pick it all up.... I am pretty sure Dad's first offer to the kids was a dime for every little ammo ball. (Silas called them beads.) Dad's offer quickly went down as the ammo added up! Sarah and Dad even tried to clean them out from underneath the front porch. There were a TON of them EVERYWHERE!

In the pictures below Silas was trying to be helpful by pulling Popee back out from under the front porch.

Time to readjust the tarp and go back under for more!

Later that day, after lunch, Eric, the kids and I went hiking back behind the cabin in Pike National Forest. (Another reason my Grandpa, Howard Hastings, bought and loved the land where he and his boys built the Hastings Family Cabin was that the land backed right up to the National Forest.) We hiked down to a trail that led us back near some old Beaver ponds and a flowing creek. We continued past this open area right up to where the creek crosses the trail.

We stopped here for a hiking break. The kids liked playing here and throwing rocks into the water.

As we hiked along Eric rediscovered a bear den that he and Sarah had found a couple years ago on one of their hikes. It is a hole dug back into the side of the mountain. I was NOT going to walk over to it, and did not really want to be near it, but Eric and the girls wanted to check it out closer... I stayed a good distance away with Silas and took pictures of them walking to it, inspecting it, and walking back to us. Below, in the picture on the right, you can see the hole dug into the ground, on the right side of the picture, as my family slowly approaches it to have a look.

Eric laid down and stuck his head right in! Then he let the girls take a CLOSE look too.

We did NOT see a bear anywhere near here. That doesn't mean there was not one somewhere around, but we did not see one. (Thank goodness.)

It was a fun family hike. Silas did whine a lot, and needed lots of encouragement to "keep walking", but we didn't have to worry about our group being too quiet with him along. We weren't going to startle in bears by sneaking up on them during this hike. They would for sure know we were around with Silas in our group.

Eric climbed up between these two rocks and stood on the top.

We saw many bugs, flowers, some deer, and gorgeous mountainsides. We also were all entertained by Eric pushing over dead trees to show off his strength. Even the girls pushed one or two over. "TIMBER!"

The trail is bigger and more evident in some spots because ATV riders also like to ride here. We only encountered one person on a dirt bike during our hike.

We took turns pushing apart this giant rock!

It was heavy, but when the group pushed together I believe it may have moved a centimeter or two...Maybe.

Another part of staying at the Hastings Family Cabin is hauling water. Silas and I got to go on one water run with Popee. On the way there we saw a large herd of Elk. While there Silas liked helping to hold the hose and watching the water spray into the large yellow tank. He also got sprayed a couple times when the hose got away from Popee and I accidentally. Whoops.

Phoebe liked pretending to cook in her kitchen. (The wood pile out near the cabin.) She would ask each one of us what wanted her to cook, then go to her "kitchen" and prepare it for us in a frisbee plate. When it was all cooked she brought it back to us to pretend eat.

Below, as I was watching her prepare some food, I saw her placing pine needles and wood chips into this blue frisbee. All of a sudden she announced, "I so excited!" as she peered into the frisbee... She had picked up and placed a worm into the frisbee without even realizing it until she looked down into her concoction.

We also found this fuzzy black and orange caterpillar that ended up in the frisbee with the worm for awhile while we all watched them creep and crawl around.

For dinner that night we ate delicious hot dogs cooked over the fire... well, except for the hot dogs that got cooked over some sort of Evergreen piece of wood... those did not taste or smell so good.