Thursday, September 10, 2015

First Anniversary in Steamboat Springs

YAY ONE YEAR
Our real first anniversary trip was earlier this summer, when we went to Jamaica. But when we are both done with summer work and have a few days before school starts, we just had to make the most of it and take a mini vacation! We had spent the week previous with the Kraus family in Castle Rock, Colorado, so we picked a location between there and Provo and spent a few days together. After talking to some friends and family in Colorado, we decided to go to Steamboat Springs! We spent the morning of our first anniversary packing up the car and hanging with the Kraus ladies. From there, we went out to linner (lunch/dinner) to Thai food--which has been a tradition with us, we LOVE Thai food--before heading to the little ski resort town!

Steamboat Springs, CO

Steamboat is seriously the cutest. Some of the things that drew us there for our first anniversary was the promise of stellar hot springs, hiking, and mountain biking. We got into town in the evening and the first thing we did was go in search of some supposedly free hot springs by the river. Either these didn't exist or we got lost, but anywho, instead we grabbed some of our favorite treats at the store, hot tubbed at the hotel, watched a movie, and made a plan for the next few days :)

Unfortunately, our second of four days in Steamboat was raining. Almost all day long. But we refused to let that deter us! We had a late morning, watched a few episodes of our favorite show at the moment (we love Fringe!), and headed out to brave the weather!

Because it was still raining, we took a stroll around the city's botanical gardens and ate at a nice breakfast and lunch cafe.

By then, the rain had died down so we went on a short hike. We hadn't originally wanted to do this hike because there were others in the area that looked more impressive, but with severe thunderstorms in the forecast, we decided to play it safe with a shorter hike. We hiked up to the Emerald Mountain Quarry--and it didn't even rain on the way up! We also learned that this hike had a lot of mountain biking trails, so it was good to scout it out for the future. The view from this hike ended up being beautiful! We were glad we went.

That's Steamboat in the background!

We didn't escape the rain for long, and we got pretty soaked and muddy on the hike back down to the car. We didn't mind though, because the weather stayed fairly warm.

After heading back to our hotel and getting cleaned up, we went on to the next adventure for the rainy day: the Strawberry Park Natural Hot Springs! It was a long drive up a muddy mountain road to get there, but it was so worth it. These hot springs ended up being one of our favorite activities of the trip. The area they were in was absolutely beautiful, and there were at least 5 different pools with different temperatures of water--some were even deep enough to swim in!


We went in the early evening because these hot springs were clothing optional once the sun went down... We wanted to stay long enough just to see the stars come out before we bolted, but then we had some other interference.


The thunderstorm we had been dreading all day finally arrived! And we were swimming around in hot springs at the top of a mountain. How safe, haha. Soon enough, we could see lightning flashes in the sky every 3 seconds NO JOKE. And I don't think I've ever heard thunder so loud! We gave it a few minutes to see if the storm was going to pass (it wasn't even raining yet) but eventually decided we didn't want to drive down the mountain in deep mud. As we were running to the car, lightning struck the ground not even 30 feet from us. It was wild! Then right as we slipped into the car, it started hailing. We got there just in time!

Friday was our last real day in Steamboat Springs! We got an early start and went on a hike up to Fishcreek Falls. The hike and view at the end were spectacular. The falls were impressive (there were some at the beginning of the hike and the very end) and we got our feet wet in the freezing water while we ate our lunch. It was perfect.




On the way back down, we ran into a couple who had creeped some pictures of us under the waterfall, and they turned out to be LDS and from Utah! So fun. As we finished the hike, we went off the path a bit and did some bouldering up to another waterfall.




We took a short break after hiking, but went right back at it. We went back to Emerald Quarry and did some mountain biking. The weather was perfect, the trails were pretty (and bumpy and terrifying) and each of us only crashed once! Not too shabby.


Then our mini vacay came to an end :( We took one last look around town before heading out to Provo to start our final year at BYU! Super senior power!

1 comment:

  1. Woa, that story about the lightening is crazy! I am glad that you guys are still alive! Geez! And Steamboat looks precious! You guys are the best!

    ReplyDelete