It's pretty silly that we get in the car in Raton to head out, and we stop after driving 20 minutes to get this picture. But I have pics of my brother and I at various ages doing the same thing, so we had to. This was a very tough traveling day. We all kept trying to stay in touch and get to places at the same time, and it just wasn't working. I finally stopped feeling guilty that everyone always had to wait for us.
I haven't even mentioned the crisis we went through a few days before leaving. Zoe, our cat, has thyroid problems and has to have special food and can't eat ANYTHING but that food or she doesn't eat. She got super thin before we figured out what was wrong with her. When we had gone to Montreal for our anniversary a month before, we left all the pets with the vet, as we've always done when we went out of town. Zoe didn't eat much of anything the whole time we were gone (4 days). So I was pretty concerned about leaving her for 10 days. I decided to call the vet the Wednesday before we left to see if he could help alleviate my fears. (My mom kept telling me, "it's not like she will let herself starve to death!") Well, the vet did not help matters. He voiced his concern that she might not eat, and that it could lead to all sorts of really bad health problems for her in the long run if that happens. I said I guess I could come home early if that happens, but I stupidly though he would say, oh it won't come to that. He instead said, "Yes, I think that would be a good plan to have." WHAT? You wait until I call YOU, and voice your concerns two days three days before we leave? I called back the next day and asked, "what about an IV if it comes to that?" and was told if she was already in a weakened state from not eating for three or four days they wouldn't be able to safely put her under to put in an IV.
I went into total panic mode at work at that point. I remembered my neighborhood friend Allyssa (who moved a year ago), had given props on Facebook to her awesome pet sitters, Mike and Eddie. I texted her that I had an emergency - could she give me their number? She did and I called them and explained my problem. They came over Thursday night for us to meet them and so they could meet the pets and find out exactly what kind of care we needed for them. They agreed to come three times a day, so we kept all three of them at home. The cost was a little more than what we would have paid at the vet, but we were just so happy they would do this for us on short notice we didn't care.
So when we were driving through Denver, and Mike texted me that Zoe was indeed eating and using the litter box, that I didn't have anything to worry about...I broke down and cried big tears of thankfulness that we found them. I will fill in more about Mike and Eddie as I go, especially when I write about getting back home. They are amazing guys.
I don't have too many pictures from this day. We were awed to see views like this one below as we started the forever-seeming drive from Loveland to Estes Park (why does the last half hour of a 12-hour drive seem to last three hours, at least.) The boys were nonstop complaining by then and even I became too beaten down to notice the vistas or take any pictures. My brother called to see where we were and I answered the phone with, "If I don't get out of this car soon and spend a little time away from my children I will spend the next five days in a padded room. Or jail."
We finally arrived and it was just beautiful. My parents had stayed there about 5 previous times. They stayed in a cabin next door on their own, and the rest of us shared a huge, awesome cabin. The Fall River runs all the way through town, and our balcony hung out over it. We heard this rushing sound while unpacking the car, and realized it was the river. They'd had a record snow fall, and most of this river is pure snowmelt. I took one look at it (keep in mind what a long driving day it had been) and burst into tears and said, "Joel is going to fall in the river and get washed away!" We had a quick family meeting to assure me that they would all be keeping an eye on him, and all the kids, if they were close to the river. I got used to it after a couple of days, and began to love to hear its sound. The water would rush a bit faster in the evenings, we discovered. Now that I'm home, that is the sound I pine for most of all.
My brother and I took on the daunting task of shopping for groceries for the whole week that night after we all got situated in our cabins. There is one grocery store: Safeway. It gouges people. And it is CROWDED. All the time, day and night. That first shopping trip was a nightmare, both for us and for the hungry crew we had waiting for food back home. And to top it off, everyone in there is thin, tan and in really good shape. How depressing!
But we made it back, had dinner and started settling in. Jojo is so funny. Or maybe it's just that he's four and we forget that sometimes. He just didn't have a clue what "vacation" meant, no matter how many times we had explained it to him on the way up. He couldn't believe we weren't going back home for seven more days.
The kids had ice cream almost every night in the mugs from the cabin's really cool Fiestaware. Cade got the idea that it looked like they had just awakened, since they were wearing their bathrobes and presumably sipping coffee. We were all so tired by now that this just seemed like the funniest thing ever.
We went to bed, happy we were all together in the mountains, with open windows and the sound of the river lulling us to sleep.
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