We spent a portion of our last Colorado weekend… underground.

First, at Country Boy Mine in Breck:

Then at Cave of the Winds in the Springs.

While I was in California stuck in meetings all day and barely hanging out with the Pearcys, Molly flew out to Colorado for a visit.

When I got back later that week we went for a hike up McCullough for one last time (I think it’s like my seventh trip up the ‘ole gulch, but still a beautiful view).

Then the next morning we had a visitor in the driveway looking for some treats.

We then took Molly on an off-road adventure over Mosquito Pass.

And at the top of the pass there were some anxious snowboarders getting some early season practice in.

On the other side, in Leadville, we had a looong lunch, then headed for another short hike up Mayflower Gulch where we explored what was left of old Boston Mine.

The next day we woke up to Kate’s birthday, and Molly and I served her icecream in bed as requested by the birthday girl. We then packed up and drove to Colorado Springs to ride the Cog Rail Road to the top of Pike’s Peak (Kate has a thing for trains if you haven’t noticed).

Then sadly we trudged to Denver to drop Molly off at the airport. But since we’re leaving CO behind and moving back to Kansas City in a week, we’ll see her and the rest of the gang soon enough. Where did our year go?

See more pictures of time with our last visitor to our mountain retreat.

After the Wonnells left on Friday morning, Kate and I hopped in the car and made the trek to western Colorado for some exploring. We ended up spending two nights at the historic Strater Hotel in Durango, riding a restored steam powered train through the mountains and exploring well preserved cliff dwellings dating back to the 1100s.

First thing Saturday morning we were able to snag a couple of the last tickets for the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad.

We rode on the open air car which offered some great views of the passing mountain scenery.

The all-day train ride took us from Durango to Silverton, a small mountain town that has a great “Old West” feel. Above is Kate standing in front of the oldest bordello in Silverton.

Riding the train was a last minute idea, and we’re very glad we jumped aboard. If you’re in the neighborhood and can swing the tickets, then we recommend it.

See more pictures from the tracks.

Sunday was history day for us. We left Durango and headed west for Mesa Verde, home of a host of cliff-dwellings tucked into canyon walls in Colorado’s western high desert.

It’s amazing to think of how old these dwellings are, and how good of a shape they’re in. Pueblo Indians were building these multi-story building in the side of shear cliffs around the same time that Henry V was building castles over in England. You expect to find buildings 800 years old in Europe, not necessarily here in America.

And these Ancestral Puebloans were a crazy folk. Some of these dwellings were insanely high and rather difficult to get to even with crude stairs and tall ladders… back then, the only way to get to most of these mountain condos was to literally scale the side of a cliff using only small toe and foot holds carved into the rock face.

After exploring several of the dwellings, Kate and I took a great little hike along the canyon wall to see some petroglyphs.

There are many more photos of Mesa Verde here.

We ended up taking the long way home and headed north to Montrose, and through our now favorite stretch of road: 550 from Durango to Ouray.

Western Colorado is now on our list of places to go back and explore some more. (anyone up for skiing Telluride?)

Our friends Rob and Sarah came out to visit us for a week and Kate and I took them on their first backpacking trip to the Maroon Bells outside of Aspen. The weather wasn’t the best and we had some slight food issues, but overall it was a good trip.

On the way to Aspen we took them over Mosquito Pass which was also another fun adventure for them. No broken shocks this time on the ole’ 4Runner, so that’s good.

After roughing it for a night, the four of us headed to Boulder for a few days of shopping and eating. Oh, and during a detour to Fort Collins, Rob and I took a tour of the New Belgium Brewery (makers of the popular Fat Tire amber ale)… which turned out to be a very interesting tour. So if you ever find yourself in Fort Collins…

See more of our photos here.