Tag Archives: Rocky Mountain National Park

2023 Colorado Vacation

I’m a bit behind in detailing our vacation exploits. Back in June we took a family vacation to Colorado, with a stop in Kansas to see family. With both kids teenagers with jobs, we had to scale things back this year and keep it simple.

We stayed at an Airbnb between Denver and Boulder and spent several days checking out the sights. We did some shopping (The Shop at Matter bookstore was a favorite), saw something like 50 deer at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal wildlife drive, and Lexi made some great restaurant choices.

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2022 Mountain Bike Solo Trip

I took a solo vacation the second week of September for mountain biking, Colorado, a concert, and to visit my grandparents. I’d been wanting to get back to Colorado for a while and my new mountain biking obsession opened up a whole new world of stuff to do. My grandparents also moved into a senior living facility at the beginning of summer, so I wanted to see them. The rest of the family were busy and not super excited about this kind of trip, so I opted to do it myself.

I also hoped to see a bit of fall color, but going for the concert in early September meant it was way too early for much. That just means I’ll have to get back to Colorado for a bucket list fall color trip.

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Synchronous Vacation Photos

I love seeing photos that are near reflections of each other. I don’t know what to call this—synchronicity, mirror images, whatever. There has to be a better way to describe them. But I love them.

While on vacation this year I managed to add a new chapter to several such photos:

1986: Me, my brother, and my dad (Grand Lake, I think)
Hendricks Boys 1986 (Rocky Mountain National Park Style)

2002: Me and my wife (Estes Park)
Kevin & Abby with the RMNP Sign

2014: My wife and I (Grand Lake)
Rocky Mountain National Park West Gate

2017: Milo, Lexi and me.
Rocky Mountain National Park

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Colorado Vacation

Rocky Mountain National Park West GateEarlier this summer we took a much-needed vacation. It’s hard to believe it was this summer… seems like so long ago.

But it was so good. We met my parents in Nebraska and dropped the kids off with them for a week of grandparent bliss in Kansas. We went on to Colorado.

Kevin & Abby with the RMNP SignAbby and I spent about four days in Rocky Mountain National Park. Growing up my family made it to Grand Lake, Colo., and Rocky Mountain National Park every summer. In 2002 Abby and I took a vacation to Colorado and loved it.

So it was glorious to go back.

We spent our days doing, well, nothing. We read lots of books. I went on a few mountain runs. We grilled out and watched Buffy and checked out the wildlife. There was lots of sitting.

Hopefully it won’t be another 12 years before we do it again.

National Parks: America’s Best Idea

Hendricks Boys 1986 (Rocky Mountain National Park Style)Last week I picked up the National Parks documentary by Ken Burns from the library. I heard about it when it was first on PBS, but who has time to sit down and watch 12 hours worth of documentary on PBS? I’ve been watching it for the past week and falling in love (again) with America’s best idea, the National Park Service.

It’s amazing what it took to create the National Parks. It started in the 1860s with the preservation of Yosemite and officially began in 1872 with the world’s first national park, Yellowstone. The idea of preserving something for the people was a uniquely American idea. But that doesn’t mean it came easily. People fought against the National Parks, not just in the 1800s, but even recently.

And once we had the parks, we had to fight even harder to save them. The idea that the animals should run free and wild wasn’t a natural conclusion. It was something people had to fight for.

After watching the entire documentary and learning about the history of the parks, I learned a few things.

First, practically every park was saved because somebody stood up and demanded action. They rallied the troops and wrote letters and raised money and did the hard work that had to be done to save a section of land from developers. It’s hard to find a park that was saved without a fight, without somebody wanting to develop the land and somebody else wanting to save it for our children and our children’s children. We owe much of our national heritage to these kinds of heroes. And not just national parks. If there’s a state park or beautiful city park in your area, somebody had to fight for that. Be thankful.

Kevin & Abby with the RMNP SignSecond, we stand on the shoulders of giants in terms of accumulated knowledge. I kept finding myself dumbstruck by the people fighting against the parks and the silly things people would do in the parks, from exterminating predators in Yellowstone to grazing sheep in Yosemite. There was no understanding of the value of nature or the way an ecosystem works or that feeding a bear isn’t good for the bear. These are simple ideas that seem like common sense to me. But I realized that’s because I was raised and taught those ideas. Nobody had those ideas 50 years ago and it seemed like a good idea to throw out food so the tourists could watch the bears. Rather than be frustrated with our ancestors who didn’t know anything, I’m grateful for my inheritance of accumulated knowledge and wisdom.

Third, I want to go back to the National Parks. Growing up we spent nearly a decade doing the traditional summer vacation and hitting up the National Parks of the American West. We hit Rocky Mountain National Park nearly every year, but each year we’d go somewhere else different and I’ve racked up quite a hit list: Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, Mesa Verde, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Bryce, Zion, Monument Valley (which isn’t actually a National Park, but a Navajo Tribal Park), Yosemite, Sequoia, Death Valley, Grand Canyon, Canyon De Chelley, Painted Desert, Petrified Forest, Carlsbad Caverns, Whitesands and probably more (and OK, some of those are National Monuments or whatever other designation they have, but they’re still in the National Park system).

In 2003 Abby and I went back to Rocky Mountain National Park and it was the greatest camping experience of my life (and campfires weren’t allowed thanks to a wild fire raging nearby). I want to take my kids to the National Parks, just like my parents took me, and my grandparents took my parents.