Mountain Sunshine to Mountain Storms

Coley says I am way too corny with my post titles, but I am ignoring his commentary as I am writing this, so who cares. We had a busy day. We started out at the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Research Museum ( or something like that). Keeg thought it was really cool. Serena did not see the value of holding our hands and not touching delicate skeletons. She was on a bit of a tear. I am breaking out the tether at our next stop like this. Then we drove out to the Florissant Fossil Beds and took our "nature walk" for the day. We went almost a mile, but we had to leave to get in the important stuff like lunch and filling the truck up with diesel before our Cog Railway reservations. The weather was beautiful-breezy and pleasantly cool.
Keeg was all fired up to ride the Cog Railroad up Pikes Peak, and we thought the good weather was going to last. Serena passed out and slept for most of the hour and twenty minute ride up (thank goodness). As we approached the summit at 14, 110 feet, you could see the clouds moving in. When we got off it was way windy and looked like it was starting to snow. By the time we walked through the building to the other side to take a picture it was worse. It started to sleet the biggest sleet I have ever seen. We got our pic taken and hightailed it back in. Apparently it was a pretty bad storm. They were hustling everyone that had driven up off of the mountain because conditions were deteriorating. We later found out they turned the next train back because of a tornado and they closed the mountain down after we left on our train. It was pretty bad. Serena was awake on the way down, and she did truly appreciate the beauty of the mountains. She did not understand why she could not hang out of the window. Keegan thought the whole thing was cool. We made it down safely to find drifts of sleet as we drove through town. We missed quite a storm apparently. We tried to wear the kids out on the playground tonight, but it took them awhile to wind down. I am proud to report that they are perfecting the art of tormenting each other. Tomorrow we are heading off to Rocky Mountain National Park. We are going to take our time to miss Denver rush hour, and we can't get there before check in time. No telling what we will find on the way. Enjoy the pics.



Want my sister?


Family portrait on nature walk


On the way up Pike's Peak-note the sunny day and clear view.


Getting our picture done before they ordered everyone inside the building.


Keegan racing back to catch the train. This was the worst "winter" storm he has ever seen in June.


Are they tired yet? Serena loved yelling "all aboard" while playing on this toy train.