Bailey CO

Another part of out "staycation" was a 

trip to Bailey, CO. We'd never been there before, and Billy had flown over the area several times. Somehow, he knew it would be beautiful from tens of thousands of feet in the air...maybe all his tinkering with GoogleEarth helped... and he was right! We tried our hand at recreational gold panning and we hiked around the area. We got absolutely no gold, but we did enjoy the scenery, and aside from a couple of meltdowns from the Small One, had a great time together.  

Beautiful mountain scenery...

We were on this dirt road for hours! We were going to a
"wilderness." At least it was pretty. Later this very dirt would
make Avery break out in hives for weeks...Little did we know...

This is the actual place that Bill saw from the air.
It was rewarding to be able to go here after he had
wanted to for so long.

See? Lost Creek Wilderness. Also, for the record,
Avery has the mass of a dying sun in this carrier.

At times, the hike was rugged...notice the "bridge".

There was no gold in these hills...just rocks.

 I did something I promised myself I'd never do on this trip. I leashed my kid. This was the first and maybe only time I'll do this. It didn't go well--as you can see. I was actually kinda proud of him reacting this way to the situation. He didn't stop crying until I unleashed him. Shortly after this picture was taken, he had a MAJOR meltdown and we left. You can't see it in the picture, but in several places under this tall grass, there were deep Avery swallowing holes. (Not to mention the swift moving and very cold creek we were picnicking beside.) I thought I could keep him close and he could still run and play...WRONG. At least there was no one around to judge me.

The (not so) old prospector...

The only "restaurant" in Bailey CO. We hunted Al down and bought
some home made fudge out of this trailer. It was GOOD!

In these big boy clothes, I can imagine him driving for real in
about 14 years. Stop growing up!