Trip Story: Glenwood Springs

First of all: I wrote a Tungsten Hippo post! I know, you'd probably assumed I'd never do that again. I had some technical issues with the comments, and I wanted those fixed before I wrote my next post. I fixed them last week, and then I wrote about the book Boom and how it disappeared and then reappeared on Amazon, and what that might tell us about the market for writing and ideas right now. So, if that sounds at all interesting, go read it. And comment! Now you can comment and it will work and it should appear instantly, instead of getting stuck in some weird curation queue I didn't even know I had. I apologize to those people who commented on earlier posts only to have their comments disappear into that black hole. They're out now, and I even answered all of them. I'll do better on this in the future.

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Now, back to my stories about our recent Colorado vacation. Glenwood Springs was our second real stop, and we loved it.

That's the tl;dr version of our stay in Glenwood Springs. But you know I can never stick to a tl;dr version of anything. Here's the full story:

We arrived at our hotel in Glenwood Springs in not quite the best mood. I was sad that the trouble with the rental car had nixed my original plan to see Breckenridge. Mr. Snarky was sad that he'd lost his glasses. The kids were sad that we'd made them leave the pirate ship playground in Vail.

Luckily, our hotel was awesome. We stayed at the Hotel Colorado. We were reasonably impressed when we first drove up. We were thrilled when we went into our room.

The balcony with the bunting turned out to be ours. ALL of it.

There were two full bedrooms connected by a little kitchen area with a table. The kids were delighted to find a little table in their room, too. Then we opened the door to the balcony and saw this:

A nice view

We decided to have dinner at the pretty little courtyard in our hotel. That turned out to be more expensive and time-consuming than we initially expected, but it was worth it. The food was good, and the setting was delightful. There were little lights in the trees, and a cool breeze made dining outside more than pleasant. And it was nice not to have to go anywhere.

The main attraction in Glenwood Springs- at least for us, on this trip- was the hot springs. We visited the springs the day after we arrived.

The hot pools in the evening

We spent a couple of hours at the pools in the morning. There is a warm pool, a hot pool, a kiddie pool, and a couple of big water slides. I would have loved more time to soak in the hot pool, but instead I spent most of my time hanging with one of the kids in the warm pool, while Mr. Snarky hung with the other one. Pumpkin is a strong swimmer now, and just needs oversight, but likes company. Petunia is still learning, and needed a parent to be right next to her or holding her at all times. Mr. Snarky and Petunia almost went on the water slide, but were spooked by the fact that it used city water, and the heater on that was broken.

After our swim, we got cleaned up and headed over to the downtown portion of Glenwood Springs, which is across the river (and the freeway) from the pools and our hotel. There is a nice pedestrian overpass, though, so it was no problem to stroll over. We had lunch at The Pullman, which was wonderful. Seriously, if you ever visit Glenwood Springs, make sure you have a meal there. The food and drinks for the grown ups are great, and although you can't find it on their website, there is a kids' menu, and they were extremely welcoming of our kids. (Granted, our kids are now past the age where they make scenes in restaurants, and know how to behave in a restaurant... but I'm sure yours do, too, and it wouldn't be a bad place to take a younger kid, since it would be easy to escape outside if the kid started to act up.)

There was a mini golf course between our hotel and the hot springs, and the kids really wanted to play. So we did. Our family rules are that we have to take turns on the initial hit, but once everyone's ball is down near the hole, we can all hit at once. This makes the game a length that the adults can stand, even when played with two kids who don't have particularly strong golf skills. Actually, I don't have particularly strong golf skills, either.

Petunia kept getting her club backwards, but she had lots of fun

As you can see, the golf course had a lot of nice shade, but it was still pretty warm out, and we  needed a bit of a rest in our room before dinner. Then, we walked back over to the downtown side of the river and strolled around downtown a bit. They have the brilliant idea of putting Adirondack chairs in various places around town. These chairs are far more comfortable than a bench, and we saw them getting quite a bit of use. We tried them out, too.

All towns should have these

We had dinner at the Glenwood Canyon Brewing Company. The beer was pretty good, and I had a delicious cheese soup. After dinner, we went back to the pools and had a wonderful swim as the sun set. Pumpkin even worked up the nerve to do some dives from the diving board, and loved that.

The next morning, we had to leave Glenwood Springs. I wish I had given us one more day there. We probably could have convinced the kids to take a short hike in Glenwood Canyon if we promised a swim after the hike, and I would have enjoyed having another day to appreciate the laid back vibe of the town. We'll have to go back sometime.

Before we left town, we decided to visit the Glenwood Caverns. The caves are part of an "adventure park" with several rides and other attractions, like this is giant swing that I would never, ever go on:

It swings out over the side of the mountain, and it makes me queasy to even think about it.

The cave tour was nice. Our kids didn't get freaked out- Pumpkin even got to be a special helper and hold a flashlight at one point (this really annoyed Petunia, who wanted a turn being a special helper, but was too small). There were the usual cave sights. This "bearded" rock was one of my favorites. The "beard" is made up of tree roots poking through the rock.

Old man rock

After the tour, we had a quick lunch at the adventure park, and then hit the road, headed for Aspen. I'll pick up the story there in a later post.