A cabin in the woods...it sounds like the beginnings of a horror story!

 

Instead it was a fun filled day and night!  The family all snowshoed to a cabin in the woods @ Tennessee Pass.  Our cabin slept 8 people and was well equipped (stove, 

 

fireplace, cistern water, solar powered refrigerator, grill, games, blocks, high chair, pack n play, sleds, outhouse).  We strapped on our snowshoes, hefted our heavy back packs, 

 

attached the sled (carrying important supplies),

 

and began our hike in.  It was only about .7 miles to the cabin with a slight uphill tendency.  My little man made it with no problems. 

 

 We melted snow to cook and drink with.

 

A beer or two was consumed that evening.

We took a couple of snowshoes on the Powder Horn trail and the Tree Line trail.  It was very peaceful.

 

It 's a good thing the snow was covering everything and I wasn't tempted to pick up objects from the ground.  Boom!

 

There were two other cabins around us and various other buildings:

 

 

We boiled a lot of water.  Melting snow doesn't equate to much water so we did have to haul quite a few buckets in.  We had sloppy joes and coleslaw for dinner, popcorn for a snack and eggs in a bag for breakfast in the morning.  This was something our friend's had showed us a long time ago on a camping trip.  These were nice since I was able to make each person's eggs to their desired taste.  The day before I read on the web that Ziploc does NOT endorse putting their bags in boiling water but I decided to take my chances since I didn't die the previous time I did it.  The only thing that I needed to remember was to not let the bags touch the edge of the pot (they burn and melt).

I was pleased with the result!

The outhouse was a small walk from the cabin but covered.

Everyone had a great time.  The kids loved rustling around in their sleeping bags and playing in the snow. Everything is always an adventure for them!

Hike: Point Breeze Cabin
Trails Used: Continental Divide Trail
Distance: .73 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Overall average: 1.3 mph
Overall Time: 45 min
Total Ascent: 181 ft.

 

 

Hike: Powderhorn Trail
Trails Used: Powderhorn Trail to Continental Divide
Distance: 2.91 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Overall average: 1.8 mph
Overall Time: 1 hr., 37 mins.
Total Ascent: 454 ft.

 

Hike: Tree Line Trail
Trails Used: Tree Line to Continental Divide
Distance: 1.86 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Overall average: 2.0 mph
Overall Time: 56 min
Total Ascent: 340 ft.

 

 

This Bud's for you!!

The family went out to the Budweiser Plant for a tour of their brewery today.  It was crisp, beautiful, and there was no wind (at least while we were there)!  The tour started off in the stables where the Clydesdale's stay when they are here.  We saw the stagecoaches they used to transport their beer and heard about the Dalmatian's that ran with each one.

  

The inside of the factory was impressive in size.  It seems most of the jobs are now computerized since we only saw 3 or 4 people working the entire time.

 

 Hops, barley, rice, and water are used to create Budweiser.  

 

 

 

 Beech wood is also used.  They were nice enough to provide samples for the kiddies.

The white cans are used in disaster situations.  They stop bottling their alcohol at their plants and produce these cans to supply water to people that need it.

 

These are the many styles of bottle tops on their cans throughout the years.  

The old advertisements were fun to see and remember.  That cigar in the first picture sure wouldn't make the cut today!  :)

The bottom line of our tour:  It's all about the drinkability!  Budweiser isn't my favorite beer.  I prefer  micro brews but that didn't stop me from doing plenty of sampling at the end.  I had some Stella Artois that took me back to my time spent in France.  Their Shock Top Wheat and their Wild Blue line of beer is rather tasty.  The tour was a good activity for the blah, hum drum, windy days of February in Colorado.

Muddy Trails

Muddy trails and high winds at Horsetooth Reservoir today.  The weather in my neighborhood fooled me.  I thought since it was 43 degrees outside and no wind that we would take a little hike/picnic this morning.  Literally within 40 seconds of leaving the car the wind started gusting.  We still walked down to the water but didn't stay long and had to 'picnic' in the back of the car with all the doors shut!  Saturday is suppose to be 50 degrees so I hope we can try again.

 

Hewlett Gulch

What a gorgeous day for a hike.  We took a scenic drive up the Poudre Canyon this morning with the grandparents and kiddo's and went for a snow hike at Hewlett Gulch.  The trail was nicely packed out so we didn't need snowshoes.  Had we been thinking and on top of it parents, we would have remembered the snow pants so the kids could have played but we weren't on top of it parents!  They still had fun.  There were many streams to cross:

Ice chunks to play with:

And scenic vistas to look at:

There were a couple foundations left of some old homesteads:

 

We had a little one that was a tad under the weather (coughing and snotty) so we didn't go quite as far as we would have liked.  It would be fun to come back up and do it again.

Hike: Hewlett Gulch
Trails Used:Hewlett Gulch
Distance: 1.9 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Overall average: 1.4 mph
Overall Time: 1 hrs, 23 min
Total Ascent: 311 ft.

Valentine's Craft Week!

We've been busy this week.  We'd been on hiatus with the crafts but this week the craft monster woke back up and we've been creating like crazy!  Thankfully it's been pretty easy for the kids to do all these projects by themselves.

And just because this has been their favorite craft project so far, we made TEN heart people!  Luckily, they want to give these away to their teachers and neighbors so they shouldn't be hanging around their bedrooms for the next 6 months collecting dust.