Summer of 2011

Cheung Family trip to Colorado

Day 8

The next day (7/2) we visited the remaining sites inside the National Park.

It is amazing to realize that much of these sites are untouched for 900 years.
The dry climate allows them to last without decay, and it is a privilege to see
them that way.

This is Long House, the second large establishment at Mesa Verde.

We left Mesa Verde National Park and headed into Durango.
It looks like an old western town.

We walked around town and enjoyed the sights.

We found a Life is Good store there.

There are a few beautiful old hotels such as the General Palmer Hotel.

Cute sights and shops are everywhere here.

We also found a great train museum in the back of the train station.

Lots of history and no admission charge.

Ice cream break!

That night, we stayed at the most beautiful cabins of the trip.
It was at the High Country Lodge in Pagosa Springs.

They had a very cute and soft bunny rabbit.

One of the games the kids invented here was walkie-talkie radio
hide and seek. It sounded like a lot of fun, and allowed us to
keep track of the kids even though it was night time.

Entrance to our cabin. All wood and no dry wall!

This is the bigger of the two cabins. The interior is beautiful. We were having a
water melon party here.

Reverse view of the living room of the big cabin.
The cabins come with a wood stove, but it looks like it would be
cold in the winter as there is no forced air ducts.

One of the two bedrooms of the bigger cabin.

The cabins were all decorated with LED Christmas lights. They looked
really nice at night.

Day 9

The next day (7/3), we went into the town of Pagosa Springs.

The first spring we encountered was under the foot bridge, and as you can see
has a large pipe to prevent erosion of the hill side.

We walked up to the town and traffic level, and encountered this spring.
It looked like a small volcano that spewed hot spring water.
It was encrusted with minerals.

We finally encountered this very nice spring on the side of the walk way. Finally
a hot spring that looks like a natural spring.

We also walked around "The Springs" hotel. The kids played chess on the lawn.

This is the front of the hotel. It has a boiling hot pond of spring water.

View of the hotel from the river.

We enjoyed spending time by the river and saw a lot of rafters go by on
inner tubes. The water was very cold. Some of the riders flipped over
and got a very cold bath.

That night we stayed at the Comfort Inn in Alamosa. The not-so-good part was us washing laundry for three families with just one washer and dryer. It took several hours and lots of quarters. However, the next day, we were served one of the nicest free breakfasts of the trip.

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