Colorado Day 1

I copied and pasted this from Word (where I record our daily vacation happenings). I am not sure why it is all underlined and I can't get it to go away.

Friday, July 24, 2009 (our 16th wedding anniversary!): Today was a good day! We left the house this morning at 4:30am headed to St. Louis and Lambert International Airport. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 7am and it was on time. We had to wait in line to get our boarding passes and then for security. Once it was time to board the plane, Bruce was able to go on first and since we were flying Southwest, we picked our own seats. He was able to get 2 window seats for the girls since this was their first ever airplane ride. We landed in Kansas City for about a half hour or so and then went on to Denver. We did not have to switch planes. We landed in Denver on time at 9:05am their time. We had not checked any bags (believe it or not!) so we were able to go straight to the Hertz place to get our rental car. We are driving a Mazda, which really isn’t big enough for us, but it will do! We began driving west, stopping for lunch at an outside mall just on the west side of Denver. Bruce and Brittany ate at Subway while Bailey and I ate at Qdoba. Our first stop was in Vail, where we spent some time shopping and taking pictures! The girls also played for awhile in a fountain area. We got a snack of popcorn while there. Then we went about 1 mile farther west and rode a gondola ride at Lionsgate. We took it to the top of the mountain and then looked around and took more pictures! It was a beautiful view and we could see all the ski slopes, etc. Then we rode back down and began driving towards Salida. Most of the drive was on a 2-lane highway and although curvy, the views were awesome. Bruce stopped once so we could look out at the scenery. We stopped along the way in Buena Vista and had dinner at a little “hole-in-the-wall” Mexican place called Pancho’s. It was good though! Those kind of places usually are! We finally arrived here at our hotel, a Great Western Lodge, around 9am. The room is pretty big and we have 2 queen size beds.

This was taken in Vail, right near the shopping area.


Playing in the fountain!

Taken on the top of a mountain after the gondola ride.

This was a bridge we crossed over somewhere around Leadville, CO on highway 24.

Also taken along the highway 24 route on the way to Salida.