Last week my Lutheran Stud spent a few days in Estes Park for some continuing ed. We met up with him on Tuesday to do what we love to do the most-explore by way of geocaching. However, first, after hearing that Noah's Ark was located in town, I had to find it. Here it is. You had no idea Noah's Ark was in Estes Park, CO did you?
If you go to the
Geocaching website or have the
app on your phone you can find nearby caches, and see how large the cache is, and/or find out the terrain difficulty. My lovely husband thought a more challenging terrain would be fun. Anna and I didn't end up making it up the steep terrain on this cache, but that didn't stop the rest of our clan.
They found the cache hidden in this huge boulder. Can you see it peeking out?
The next cache was a little easier to find.
Again, it was hidden under a rock. This time, though, there was a little rabbit next to it. The name of this cache was Thumper. Often times the title of a cache can be a clue to finding it.
Our next find took us on this road that was more like a jeeping trail. Actually, if you don't have a 4-wheel drive vehicle you probably wouldn't make too far on this road.
The Giving Tree was quite giving to our children.
It was full of goodies.
Every once in awhile I make my family pose for photos. Can you see the excitement on their faces?
We had to park and hike 1/2 a mile for our last cache.
It was a beautiful hike with random cacti along the way.
The higher we went the more spectacular the view became.
Wild flowers were also dispersed randomly on our trail.
We finally made it up some steep rocks and found this ammo can filled with treasures inside.
Well, maybe treasures for some and junk for others?
After a long hike we headed back down the mountain for a little treat at the Munchin' House.
Ice cream was a welcomed snack to cool everyone down.
Then it was off to dinner with friends at
Poppy's. The pizza was fabulous and since the children filled up on ice cream there was more pizza for us. Try it out if you're ever in Estes Park!
A member at our church is an avid geocacher. He has even taken vacations based around geocaching. He recommended this park to us, so we thought we'd check it out.
The weather couldn't be any better for hiking.
This tiny little old film container was our first cache. I can't believe that our children will never know what film containers look like.
The stroller didn't last too long because soon the terrain became less stroller friendly.
Rachel and Kai found our next cache.
The boys enjoyed rock climbing all over the park.
The mountain views were beautiful as always.
"Hello, down below!" One part of the trail became steep which made it difficult for the little ones to keep up.
I think that's a view of a golf course in Evergreen.
We even saw a few horses on the trail.
Another film geocache was found behind a huge rock.
David then found another geocache with goodies included.
What great hiding place!
A nearby hiker offered to take a photo of all of us. We could have continued our hunt, but we had some grumbling bellies,
so off to BeauJo's we went!
