Colorado Vacation – Day 6

Day 6:

  • Left camp around 9:00am
  • Drove the Lariat Loop and dropped off our travel bug in a geocache
  • Visited Red Rocks and checked out the ampitheater
  • Lunch in downtown Golden
  • Back to camp where Evan took a nap
  • Swimming at the waterpark in Golden
  • Back to camp for a 2nd afternoon nap
  • Dinner

First thing this morning we loaded up the truck and headed towards downtown Golden. From there you can pick up a paved road that goes up into the foothills overlooking Golden, part of the Lariat Loop. On the way up, we passed dozens of bikers, which brought up two questions: why on earth would someone want to ride a bike up a mountain, and when do these people work? There was an easy geocache on this road, so I hopped out to log it. It was only a few hundred feet off the road, but it was out on a point with steep cliffs on all sides, overlooking Golden and Clear Creek Canyon. There were a couple of employees of one of the park systems with binoculars documenting the herd of bighorn sheep they saw on the hill across the creek.

We finished the loop and took a quick tour of Red Rocks, including the natural ampitheater there. It’s a very large venue and looks like it would be fun to see a show at. After Red Rocks, we headed back to downtown Golden and grabbed a bite to eat, then back to camp so Evan could take a nap.

Since it was Evan’s turn to have some fun, we spent all afternoon at the water park in Golden. Evan had a blast playing in the sand, sitting in the zero-depth play pool, and going down the big water slide with me. In the play pool, they have this giant bucket of water that fills slowly and dumps all at once. Evan sat in water about a foot deep for probably an hour and a half hanging on to me, laughing, and waiting for the water to dump. When it did dump, he’d bury his head in my chest and cackle until the deluge was done. The whole time we were in the pool, we wanted to hang on to me, but wasn’t afraid of anything- he was just having a good time cuddling and playing.

After the pool, we came back to give our exhausted son another nap and then dinner. Tomorrow we pack up and head up to Estes Park, so we’re taking it easy tonight.

More stuff we saw:

  • A camper van with a popup roof, which just moved in to our loop
  • Our neighbor’s unsealed sewer connection, which is certainly doing nothing to enhance our stay. The management asked them to correct the issue two days ago, but they haven’t yet.
  • Dozens of cyclists climbing mountains in 90 degree weather

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