Colorado/Utah Trip Days 1-3: Driving, Vail + Glenwood Springs

I have a window of time to myself this Mother’s Day morning, it’s a beautiful day, I’m in the sunroom, the windows are open, the sun is shining, and I thought to myself, “It’s my ‘special day’. What’s something I can do for a little while to fill my own cup?” (before we start on some yard work!). And I thought, I am really in the mood to write a travel recap! I made a goal to recap 5 of our past trips in 2025, and so far, have only done one (San Francisco 2008).

Besides, I’ve been feeling nostalgic lately for the national park road trips we’ve done with the boys. They are some of my FAVORITE travel memories, and I’m just itching to load up the car and drive off into the wild west. LOL. Sadly, we don’t really have a trip like this on the docket at the moment. We used to go on a nice, long road trip every August… but Ethan’s high school schedule annoyingly ruined that rhythm for us! (He now starts by ~August 14th instead of early Sept, like they used to.) Working around Asher’s summer swim season + school too has really made the opportunity window shrink…

So, to scratch that itch, I am going to start recapping our Colorado and Utah trip in August 2019!

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Let’s see, the boys were LITTLE looking. Asher was 9 1/2. Ethan had just turned 11. I was 35, Ivan 38, and my parents were still just 68!

On this trip we made a big loop for 2 weeks. Our ultimate itinerary went:

Madison, WI –> Vail, CO –> Glenwood Springs, CO –> Moab, Utah (Arches, Canyonlands, Dead Horse State Park) –> Mesa Verde National Park, CO –> Durango/ Silverton, CO –> Ouray, CO –> drive home.

It was an AMAZING AMAZING trip and very high up on my list of “favorite trips ever”.

Seeing as I am literally incapable of narrowing down photos and making this short, I’ll break this up into several posts, I’m sure. Let’s go and see how far we make it!

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Thursday, August 8, 2019

Our traditional “hitting the road” pic! Off we go. On this trip we were caravaning- the four of us in our van, my parents in their van.

I have no real recollection of any events from this drive, not surprisingly. I believe we left in the afternoon- like maybe we worked a half day? Details are fuzzy. From Madison to our first real stop of Glenwood Springs it’s about 16 1/2 hours, so we broke it up over 2 days of driving.

I am pretty sure we drove all afternoon/ evening and then stopped for the night somewhere in far western Iowa, I believe? Maybe all the way into Nebraska. Not sure! I don’t know what we ate for dinner, but I’d bet money that we hit up a random Buffalo Wild Wings, perhaps. 😅

Friday, August 9, 2019

Here’s Ethan Friday morning at our hotel breakfast. I am certain this was just a “wherever we stopped along the way” type of hotel; I bet we didn’t even have a reservation.

I adore driving west into the wide open spaces!!

We drove through Nebraska- here is proof! lol! I remember taking this pic at a gas station road stop.

Our first real planned stop was Friday late afternoon, in Vail, Colorado. The actual plan was to get all the way to our (reserved) hotel in Glenwood Springs, but I wanted to stop off in Vail, since we were passing through, anyway.

I recall that this worked out very well! We parked in a public parking lot and spent a couple hours just wandering around. I’d never been there- it’s SO cute!!!! Full of shops and very nice, upscale restaurants and just beautiful surroundings. I can see why it’s such a popular destination (even in the summer)!

We got ice creams, stretched our legs and the boys played around by the fountains. I know we went into some shops, too.

I love this picture of the boys. 💗

SO CUTE!

I can’t believe how little the boys were… feels like not that long ago!

From Vail, we still had about 2 hours to go to Glenwood Springs, so unfortunately, we couldn’t linger longer. I think it got a little later than desired, especially since the roads got more mountainous, but we still made it before dark. I had our hotel all booked though this time. 😉

At our hotel in Glenwood Springs!

We only had one night at this hotel- I think it was maybe a Quality Inn?- but it was SO pretty there!! Also had a great pool, hot tub and an awesome free hot breakfast. I absolutely would have stayed there longer.

We quickly dropped our stuff and were HUNGRY, I do recall that. We drove into Glenwood Springs (it was pretty late already!) and went straight to the Glenwood Canyon Brewpub. (We LOVE breweries.)

I actually remember that we got a nachos appetizer to share, of course, and they had fresh jalapenos!

It was a really nice place.

After dinner, it was getting very late, but I distinctly remember that we still enjoyed a bonfire + a beer before bed! The hotel had big firepits. The boys went to bed, I think, but the firepit was right across from the room. Perfect.

I clearly remember sitting here with Ivan + my parents, the warm fire, the fresh mountain air and really loving this moment. 🙂

Saturday, August 8, 2019

On Saturday morning we had plans! Glenwood Springs was not exactly a “main” destination on this trip for us, so we really only had a partial day before continuing on to Moab. (Although, Glenwood Springs certainly could be a main destination! It’s beautiful and there is a lot to do there! There’s just only so much time… we had to pick and choose.)

We took a quick dip in the hot tub before a nice breakfast.

Then, we drove to the visitor center where we had timed reservations to hike Hanging Lake (I think for 10:00). We had to take a shuttle bus to the trail head. This was in 2019 and the reservation system was brand-new at the time; not sure how it works now!

This hike was awesome. Definitely challenging! It was marked as “moderate” but had a ton of incline and was very rocky. It’s about 3.5 miles, but steep.

Example below of how much of the trail looked! This definitely was on the borderline of “too hard” for my mom’s taste… she actually did fine with the physical aspect (#grandmabeastmode), but it got very hot out. She ended up getting overheated (in large part because we had to rush on the way back down to catch our return shuttle time…) and had symptoms of heat stroke by the end!! So that was not good. But besides that unfortunate part, the rest of this hike was amazing and I would highly, HIGHLY recommend it.

It’s very beautiful all throughout, and quite varied.

I love this picture:

Awww…. my little guys!! What a difference 6 years makes.

Before you get to the lake, there is an offshoot trail for Spouting Rock waterfall. This is definitely worth the extra time- it was a highlight for the boys!

We continued on to Hanging Lake which is absolutely GORGEOUS! That crystal clear, green water.

Like I said, the way back down was a little hairy because we had to hustle or risk missing our shuttle back. Going DOWN is also harder in some ways, just having to really watch your footing. I remember it actually bothering my knees a bit!

We made it down in one piece!

My mom was NOT feeling well by this point, though. She was way overheated and was having some GI symptoms and totally dehydrated, I think. We went to a Dairy Queen next to the visitor center in town (that had freezing cold air conditioning, thankfully) and just let her sit and cool down and regroup.

The plan for the afternoon had been to do a quicker stop at the Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park before hitting the road again. This is a “mountaintop adventure park” with rides, attractions, etc. – you could easily spend hours, I’m sure. We didn’t have much time though, and just were planning to do the gondola ride up + the mountain coasters only.

My mom was still not feeling well, so they decided they’d continue on driving to Moab (our stop for the night) and let her rest in the car, and the 4 of us would catch up with them, later. (We had 2 vehicles, remember.)

Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park

This place was really cool! I was bummed my parents missed it, but oh well.

Like I said, we didn’t have a lot of time, but at least we got a nice taste of it and the views were killer. It worked out well. (Our options were either a short visit or not at all, so I’m glad we squeezed it in.)

Views from the top! So so pretty.

We headed straight for the mountain coasters. The boys had never done one of these before and were excited! They’re basically gravity driven coasters down the mountain, with a hand brake to slow you down, as needed. They’re not very scary- anyone could do this, I believe (I guess unless you hate heights!)- but still just fun and exhilarating enough.

No great pics from the ride, of course- my hands were occupied!- but it was super fun! I think they were too young to ride alone, so we each took one.

We got Icees and walked around a little before heading back down the gondola.

Then…. we still had a 3 hour drive to Moab!! Oops. I think I misjudged this when planning, honestly, because I remember sitting at the Dairy Queen looking at the map on my phone and being like, Oh, I thought Moab was only ~1.5 hours away?? Nope, 3 hours. 😬

Oh well. It was a nice, easy flat drive and being summer, it was light out until late. After the tough hike + adventure park excitement, chilling in the car with music on, pretty views and probably a soda in the cup holder was relaxing. (For me, anyway- Ivan drove. Lol.)

I’m not sure what time we got there- I’d guess it was at least between 7- 8 pm?

I had reserved this VRBO for the next several nights and this is one of my favorite rentals we’ve ever stayed it! A beautiful 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom place with multiple levels (lots of privacy) and multiple decks.

The main deck off the kitchen looked right out over the beautiful red rocks.

My parents were there already, relaxing! We got take out pizza for dinner and settled in.

Here’s the VRBO… I love how it’s nestled in the rocks! Actually, this Moab portion was my fave of the entire trip I think. I loved Moab (and this general area) so much!!! I would love to go back.

We walked around to explore the grounds a bit. It was a great spot.

We hit the pool + hot tub before bed. I remember this being sooo nice, too. The water was so warm but the desert air cooled off just enough at night that this felt amazing!

I think I’ll stop there for now!

We spent these next 3 nights in Moab, Utah exploring Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, Dead Horse State Park, and a huge highlight of our trip- we went canyoneering!! But that’s a lot for one post. 🙂 Especially because I have KILLER photos I want to include! Seriously, Utah is just stunningly beautiful.

Stay tuned for the next installment (eventually ;)).