More Vacation Pics in CO - Garden of the Gods

I know my blog hasn't been updated in ages, so I'm trying to get some posts up here today. We spent some time in Colorado Springs, and the kids really liked visiting park.

Summer Vacation: Colorado Rapids Game

One of my personal highlights on vacation was going to a Colorado Rapids MLS match. It was a chance for just Karsten and I to hang out and enjoy the sport we like more than any other.

The Rapids have a new stadium (Dick's Sporting Goods Park) that is just gorgeous. It seats a little over 20,000, and there's not a bad seat in the place. The weather couldn't have been better either - a perfect night for soccer with temps in the low 80's at kickoff, and only dropping to the mid-70's toward the end of the match.

We sat in the cheap seats, which still had great views and sightlines. We could have moved to much better seating once the match started, but Karsten wanted to stay where we were. Our seats were in the section next to the "avid" fans section - they played drums and trumpets, and sang the entire match. Pretty cool - although not the flavor of international matches that I've been too where the whole stadium in singing and playing instruments.

Geoff Cameron is a rookie on the Houston Dynamo, and has been getting reagular appearances for the 2-time defending league champions - a significant achievement. His mom, Diane, ended up sitting right behind me, and I had several converations with her before and during the match. Geoff didn't start, but entered the game at the 70th minute, and created several good chances for teammates to score.



Colorado Rapids are affiliated with Arsenal (you can see the Arsenal banner above the tent on the right side of the photo above. They are sort of a minor league/development team for Arsenal - but there's not a lot of close ties that any serious fans would notice. Nonetheless, Karsten is definitely a Rapids fan since the two clubs are affiliated with one another.


The power went out at the 70th minute and delayed the game for about 20 mins. Three of the four light towers failed. There was still enough light to see, but there were definitely too many shadows for the match to be played until the lights came back on.

Oh, and Karten wouldn't let me take his picture, nor would he let anyone take a picture of the two of us at the game. He's already acting like a teenager - and he's only 7.


The game ended 0-0. A couple goals were disallowed for either side, but it was pretty entertaining all the same. We will definitely go back, and are also planning to visit an MLS game in Chicago later this summer as well.

Summer Vacation: South Platte Park (Littleton, CO)

We decided to ease into vacation and do a nature hike at the South Platte Park in Littleton. It was close to our hotel, offered exposure to the great outdoors, and seemed to have plenty for the kids. It's certainly not the most scenic part of CO, but it was worth the trip.

The nature center offered a couple important amenities: 1) air conditioning, and 2) a flood simulator where kids can build a city of sorts, and see how flooding and erosion have an impact on where we live and the environment. The kids absolutely loved it, and would have played longer than the 45 mins or so we were in there.

Summer Vacation: Hitting the Road

The kids travel pretty well. The only irritating things they do are get on one other (and my) nerves, and make a big mess of the van - but we manage around that well enough. Frankly, what do you expect when you're in a van for around 55 hours in 9 days, and they do that at home often enough - so there were no suprises there
We had some severe storms (hail, heavy rain) between the CO-NE border and Denver, but managed to get this pic of a huge rainbow after we cleared the inclement weather.

Summer Vacation: Colorado

Well, we got home from vacation 4 weeks ago to the day of this writing, and I'm just now getting around to blogging about it. Sure things have been crazy, but my biggest barrier to start blogging our vacation was that I knew I'd have to sort through about 5oo photos, make edits, write, etc. It's pretty overwhelming even as I write this.

So baby steps are in order, I'll start by covering the first few days and hopefully have the entire vacation blogged within a week or so.

We decided to go to Colorado this year. Why did we choose Colorado? Well... the best reason is we couldn't come up with anything better to go that was within a more reasonable distance (if you call nearly 1000 miles each way at today's gas prices "reasonable," that is). I lived in Denver for a summer during college while I did my internship, and loved it. Nikki has been there too, so since there's lots for the kids to see and do as well, it seemed like a good choice. I'm glad we did.

As I did last year, here are a few stats from our vacation:

• Miles Driven: 3126
• Hours Driving during 9 days of vacation: ~ 55
• Emergency bathroom breaks: 2 (still room for improvement, but I'm not complaining...)
• States visited during trip: 6 (MN, IA, NE, CO, WY, and SD)
• Survived a Hail Storm?: yes (2 years running now)
• Cost for new brakes on van because people ahead of us didn't know how to drive in the mountains on vacation: $487
• Number of nights staying in hotel: 9
• Number of nights we paid for a hotel: 1 (we used my Hilton points for every night except our last night in Wall, SD - since Hilton didn't have any nearby hotels)
• Stops at McDonalds: only 1
• Moving/Traffic violations: 0
  

Wisconsin Dells

We spent a weekend with some friends from church at Wisconsin Dells. The kids love spending time there, and so do we. Being with our friends who feel the same way made it even better!

The resort was great. Even though it was late October, and all the outdoor pools were closed, this resort had THREE indoor water parks - easily enough stuff to keep the kids occupied and entertained for the weekend.

Here are some pics from our room. It slept 4 adults and 7 kids (yep, 'tis true) with extra room for the adults to chat after all the kids were in bed. Well, "in bed" doesn't mean our kids stayed there, but we did have some chances to chat.

We're definitely planning to go back.

Vacation: The Farm (6/23/07)

Both my parents grew up on farms in Southwest MN, and farming is still in our family's blood. My mom's only brother, Uncle Dave, still works a farm in the area.

Karsten has a definite interest in farms, and we want to try to expose the kids to this type of life so they understand the work involved and appreciate what goes into producing the food they eat. Thus we try to get out to the farm at least once a year.

When we were coming through on our way home from the Black Hills, they were just finishing spraying the crops for weeds. There was still some hay to be cut, so Uncle Dave took Karsten and Kiera out about 90 mins in the tractor to cut it down.

Uncle Dave seems to be pretty impressed with Karsten's knowledge of the farm. He said that Karsten was wondering why they couldn't bail the hay by pulling the bailer behind the cutter. David said that the hay needed to dry before it could be bailed, otherwise it would rot. Karsten in turn asked why he couldn't a "furnace" to dry the hay between the time it was cut and bailed. Dave said no one had come up with a way to do that, but if Karsten could he could make a lot of money with that idea.

There are no working prototypes yet, but we're already cashing the check ;-)

Vacation: Storybook Island (Rapid City, SD) 6/22/07

We planned to head back to Brookings, SD to visit with my brother, grandparents, and other relatives on our way back home. In order to get there, that meant a quick trip through Rapid City and Storybook Island.

Storybook Island is a free park operated by the city and a private trust. Most of the attractions are themed from popular children's books. It's more or less a playground, but it kept the kids busy and subsequently burned a lot of energy as we began the 5-6 hour drive to Brookings.

Vacation: Spearfish Canyon (6/20/07)

After spending the day in Deadwood and Lead, Papa suggested we take the drive through the Spearfish Canyon. It was the opposite direction we needed to go in order to get back to the cabin, but it was worth it.

Hopefully these pictures will do it a little justice. My only real problem is that there aren't any places to stop and take pictures when driving through the valleys. The way to get the good pictures is by hiking - something we didn't have the time to do.

These pictures were taken using my new tripod...the steering wheel of our minivan.

Vacation: Homestake Mine (Lead, SD) 6/20/07

After going through Deadwood in the morning, we drove a few miles to Lead (prounced with a long "e" sound) to see the Homestake mine.

At one point, this town had a population of over 10,000. Today, the population is only around 3,000 since the mine is now closed. In it's heyday, the mine more or less WAS the town of LEAD since it owned, built, and operated: all the roads (so employees could get to work), the hospitals (with full family medical and dental coverage), the library (the largest in the state in it's time), an opera house (seeting 1,000 people, the schools, and even the local power plant. The mine even gave discounts on the houses and sold them at cost of materials only and free land.

The mine claims it is the country's largest gold mine, but the company had to shut down in early 2002 when the cost of mining was more than the cost of gold recovered, refined, and sold. The primary factor that led to the shutdown was the sheer depth: 8000 ft. Most mines don't even reach 5000 ft.

Overal, the kids liked it pretty well, too.

The tour doesn't allow you to go down in the mine. You only get to see what's above ground. For more pictures, info, and history, you can access the Homestake Mine website.

The first picture is of the open dig (Again - no pictures of the mine underground). The second is of one of the 5000 ft cables used to access the mine shafts. (There is another room this size 5000 ft below ground so the mine could potentially go 10,000 feet down). We also had a little bit of hail as well...

Vacation: Deadwood, SD 6/20/07

On Thursday, we took the drive up to Deadwood, SD. Home of gold mines, brothels, gambling, and Wild Bill Hiccup (I know it's "Hickock," I feel like being juvenile at the moment) Of the notorious items mentioned above, only gambling is still prevalent today. Come to think of it, gambling pretty is all that's in Deadwood. There really isn't a lot to see in Deadwood without going past a slot machine. I saw a sign that claimed Deadwood had 80 casinos - if that's the case, then this town of 1,380 has a gambling dependency. I've been to Las Vegas, but Deadwood seems more over-the-top than Sin City - mainly because there are other things to do/see in Vegas that Deadwood simply can't offer.

From an architectural view, the town has been beautifully preserved and restored. One can't help but get a sense of history in this little town - even if much of that history is somewhat dubious.

Vacation: Custer State Park-Sylvan Lake 6/19/07

We spent the middle of the day hiking around Sylvan Lake. I took way too many pictures for a lake only 1.5 miles around or so, but these are the best of the lot.

Vacation: Custer State Park-Needles Highway 6/20/07

On Wednesday, we spent most of the Day at Custer State Park. In the morning, we drove the Needles Highway through the park. It was amazing...I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.