Westward Ho!

Last Week, Team Nugget took a much needed vacation and headed to the mountains of Colorado. It was glorious to say the least. Now some people might be a little nervous at the thought of hopping in the car for an 11 hour ride across the Great Plains with an energetic toddler, but not Team Nugget. Monkey is a traveler extraordinaire, thanks in part to my former 2 hour 40 minute round trip work commute during the first year of her life. The girl can roll. And roll we did, without incident.

Oh don't get me wrong, I expected a meltdown somewhere in western Kansas, and was equipped with the tools to deal: the coveted (by parents everywhere) portable DVD player and an arsenal of annoying toddler DVDs. Little Nugget is well acquainted with such items at home, but we managed to never need them in the car, so pulling out the DVD player is one big gun. But the fuss-fest never came! Awesome! So somewhere among the prairie grass and antelope, we pulled out the electronics, just for the fun of it. Monkey was surprised, to say the least:

Stopped in her tracks! She just kept looking at us like, "you mean we can have the Wonder Pets in THE CAR???!!!!" To say she was pleased is an understatement:

It was pretty cute.


We finally arrived at our destination, a cabin called the Royal Roost located in the Front Range at Bailey, CO, about an hour out of Denver. It was run by a super nice couple, Tom and Judy, who run Royal Ranch, offering cool llama adventures!

We didn't get to go hiking with the llamas, but we will on our return!

So after we checked in at the Ranch, Tom lead us to the cabin, a secluded get-away nestled in the woods that backed up to the Pike National Forest. As we drove up the trail, the temperature dropped, and the rain started to freeze! I was a little worried because we had wanted to take the SUV, but the dealership didn't get the maintenance done in time. So my tiny little Matrix had to off-road up this rocky road. She was a trooper! We made it to the cabin, and were struck by the beauty of our new surroundings. In front of the cabin flowed Deer Creek:

The sound of the water was SOOOO relaxing! And this was our scenery at 9200 feet:

Hubby Nugget joked to Tom that they were going to have to chase us out at the end of the week, and he was right! Ahhhh! Once in the cabin, Hubby Nugget built an awesome fire in the fireplace, and we chilled out. Can't get any better than that!

And so that concludes day one of Team Nugget's grand adventure!

All for now,

Nugget