It's been so long since the actual Aspen trip it seems silly to still post about it, but there was one more really cool thing we did, so for completeness sake I'm blogging it anyways. We went to this really cool park up in the mountains called Maroon Bells.
C'mon, tell me this isn't gorgeous. This is postcard stuff, right? Look at the reflections in the lake! We Californians get impressed just seeing this much water in one place without a golf course around it, but this is pretty darn spectacular in it's own right.
Here we are, taking the obligatory family shot against the dramatic mountainous background. Not bad for a camera on self-timer balanced on a rock!
Credit where it's due, we almost didn't go here...having gone up the other mountain, there were those who said why bother with another one. But Cathy campaigned successfully, and we're really glad she did. Everybody really enjoyed the wide open spaces, and of course the boys enjoyed following their little cousin Lily as she toddled around, exploring.
Hey, is there someone behind me?
We also had a bit of excitement while we were there...some other hikers told us they had spotted a BEAR on the other side of the lake. Yikes! Now, in this sort of situation, with a large, possibly carnivorous animal prowling in your immediate area, what would the most logical response be?
That's right...stand around and try and take it's picture.
We did eventually spot him and get a shot (albeit quite distant, as you can see) but it was still very cool to see a real live bear out in the wild. Also slightly nervous-making though, as this big lake narrows to a tiny stream, and the bear was headed in the same general direction as our parking lot. So we got out of there, but we're very happy we went! One more family pic for the road:
Oh, and one last thing - remember how I said the little girls were following Lily around the pool like a bunch of ducklings? Well, I had only gotten one little bit of video of it, and it wouldn't copy because the memory card had run out during filming, but I figured out how to recover it (using the in-camera edit function). So here it is!
