Salamander City: Lake Granby

Camping again!!! Check out our beautiful campsite

right on the lake, complete with new tent!!

I did my research beforehand, found the best sites in the campground, booked back in February (or so), got 8 sites all very close together.

As things will go, so things went. A good deal of our friends cancelled for the trip, so it was down to two families. Which was wonderful, as our kids really got a chance to rediscover each other. I think the only conflict occurred when Owen tried to keep Elise's (the family's) harmonica from her.

The bummer - pine beetles have decimated the campground. I think the only trees left standing were just to the right of our campsite - too far to be of any shade to us, unless we dragged our chairs etc about 50 feet to the trees. Maybe a month or two ago our site would have been shady and lovely. We had to evacuate the site during the day to avoid major burning and heatstroke.

The traditional fairy house had to be built. This one had stone floors, bowls, candles, and more I'm sure.

A unique feature of this part of the country, our own mini-Rushmore, featuring a sleeping Abraham Lincoln. If you can't see it ask me. (Thanks Russ!) Thereafter, everything referred back to Abe. Hey look, the moon is coming out of Abe's head! Look, Abe is behind the clouds! Look how big Abe is (as we went west towards Monarch Lake). Etc.

And of course stories by the campfire. Here is one scary character.....

There was a beautiful sunset on Friday night - but - the coolest part ever - the moonrise. Friday was a full moon, and as it came up over the mountains, it was amazing. This certainly made the whole trip worthwhile. I am not kidding. Here is the moon already up, quite spooky:

Saturday we went into Grand Lake to avoid the sun. The town was having a "Western Festival" of some sort, involving bluegrass (or western, maybe?) music, and the sheriff shooting off guns. Anyway, we found shade, and a great playground, and were happy for quite some time.

After lunch we took a short hike above the town, across the border in to RMNP, and played in a cool creek. We found this sweet glade:

And spent some time along the creek. A lot of time, maybe.

The wildflowers were wonderful. I took many more wildflower pictures, I decided to do a separate blog entry just for my flowers. You'll understand why if you check that one out!

After our venture into Grand Lake, we came back to the campground and spent some time IN the lake. How could we not?

Here's what the kids did for fun with the felled trees. They were an endless source of amusement.

Here comes the next sunset.

Look at those clouds!

Enjoying the campfire....

Here - yes, I videoed the moonrise. Amazing, it only took a few minutes. It's fun, worth the watch. All that was missing was Bob and Marcos playing "Moondance"....