FT. COLLINS AND ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK: AUG. 8-11

At Fort Collins we stayed at my dad's friend's house. My dad's friend is named John Riley. He has a daughter named Katie. She is the same age as me! That night Jackson had to babysit us because the parents went to a bar. It wasn't bad. We watched T.V. practically the whole time. The next morning I woke up before Katie, so I went fishing with my brother and my dad. (Katie has a big lake in her neighborhood.) When Katie woke up we ate pancakes with whipped cream, blueberries, strawberries and syrup. Then we played demi-gods. Then we left for Rocky Mountain National Park. Our campsite had disk golf, a tennis/basketball court, a playground and a horse ranch! The next day I went on a one hour horseback ride on a horse named Mandy. And then I went on a hike to fish. I caught my first trout! The next day we went on a long hike. The next day we left. - Hannah

Hannah and Katie had fun playing together.

John Riley shows Jackson where to fish.

 RMNP was really beautiful.  We were lucky because Jen's parents had a campsite reserved at the Winding River Resort near Grand Lake on the west side of the park, and they weren't going to use it so we were able to take their spot.  It was definitely high tourist season in the park, so to get over to the west side and have a spot reserved kept us out of the fray. The kids loved the campground because it was so civilized with horses and disk golf and water at your campsite. At the visitor center we asked one of the rangers about fishing.  He told us that he was far too well-adjusted to fish; however, one of the other rangers had fished every lake and stream and had documented what he had caught there.  He showed us the map. We took a photo, and we were off on our national park fishing adventure. At first I wasn't really interested in the fishing. It was just an activity to keep Jackson motivated on our adventures.  But then I realized it was such an awesome way to get the whole family into the back country doing something together.  We had so much fun hiking into these small meadow streams. Jackson and John and even Hannah were catching fish left and right.  I didn't catch anything, but I loved to see my family having fun together in these beautiful locations. - Hillary

It's so hard to hold onto!!

Exploding the van at our campsite.

Fish we caught and where we caught them:
Fort Collins
Small Mouth Bass
Yellow Perch
Walleye or Sauger (Hannah caught it. It was big.)
RMNP
Brown Trout (By Winding River Resort. There were only two, but, hey, that's still fish.)
Brook Trout (We caught these on Onahu Creek.)
Cutthroat Trout (We caught these in Timber Creek on the way to Timber Lake.  It was a small stream but the fish were bigger than the day before.)

Cutthroat

Hiking back from Timber Lake rods in hand.