Buena Vista

Last weekend I took a trip to Buena Vista with Tori, Andrea and Mike.  Tori's family has a cabin out there, and she was nice enough to invite us up for a weekend!  The drive was spectacular, and I could hardly keep my eyes on the road as we wound past rivers, canyons and towering mountain peaks.  We'd climb up one mountain grade to reach the top and be awarded with sweeping views of the valleys blending into more mountains in the distance.  It hardly seemed like we were just miles out of Denver.

The road to Tori's cabin

 The girls and I arrived before Mike and had lunch at a brewery in the town.  We then made our way to Tori's cabin stopping to take pictures at almost every turn.  The cabin was spacious but quaint, and after dropping off our things we went on a hike along the river.  I loved the way the sunshine shone through the tops of the aspen trees, turning their leaves into shining green and gold coins.  After hiking near the cabin, we drove to the natural hot springs and then up to the historic town of St. Elmo.  St. Elmo is considered one of the most well-preserved ghost towns in Colorado.  It was founded in 1880, when nearly 2,000 people settled in the town to mine gold and silver.  The mining industry started to decline in the early 1920s, and in 1922 the train discontinued service.  Henceforth the town slowly became less and less occupied.  It was a bit eerie to walk through it, seeing such incredibly preserved buildings and homes, like the people just left at a moment's notice. 

The best part of St. Elmo's, though, was some furry friends that we made across from the town's general store.  We bought several bags of sunflower seeds and feed them for quite some time because we couldn't get enough of their fat cheeks as they gorged themselves from our hands.

That evening we had dinner at a great Mexican restaurant then drank wine back at Tori's cabin while playing the board game "Operation" (yes, extremely cliche and dorky for a group of doctors, but it's just the best game ever).  The next morning we got up early, headed into town for coffee, then made our way to River Runners for an afternoon of white-water rafting on the Arkansas.  The river was flowing at 3,600 cubic feet per second, very fast due to all the run-off from the melting snow in the mountains.  We had a great time with our rafting guide Jonathan as he guided us through some churning, foaming, swifly-flowing rapids.  My favorite was called Zoom Floom, a pretty decent set of rapids with some major vertical drops.  I wish I could have had a video camera trained on our faces to catch our expressions as we blasted through the rapids.  I absolutely love white-water rafting and I can't wait to take Landon for the first time!  The water was freezing, and I was thankful for the wet-suits we wore, especially since they were incredibly stylish.