A Weekend in the Mountains

This last weekend we went camping! We went to one of our favorite places....a campground up above Telluride at a place called Woods Lake! It's amazingly gorgeous up there! At about 9,500 feet above sea level, we were up in the aspen forest! Woods Lake sits in a "bowl" surrounded by high alpine mountains, several above tree-line. The views and scenery are spectacular, and reminds me of why people say Colorado is "God's Country"!! And we are lucky enough to live only an hour and a half drive from this beautiful place!!

I have many pictures to share with you from the weekend. I took so many pictures and choosing which to post here has been difficult. I'm glad I don't feel like I have to hold back too much when I comes to posting pictures here! LOL I hope you'll enjoy seeing these. As we were camping and I was taking pictures, I was thinking how cool it would be to have you all there with us!! Well, this is the best I can do!!

As I said, we were up in the aspen forest. I've always thought that the aspens have a different "feel" than being in a pine forest. The aspens tend to be "lighter" in feel, with there light colored bark and light green leaves. Dusty took this picture, near our campsite, and I really like the way it came out!!


I took many pictures of the wildflowers that were blooming. This is one wildflower that I really like. It's so delicate looking. I believe it's called "Queen Anne's Lace". If you know differently, please let me know as my wildflower education is lacking!!!


I took this one of the aspen trees above where we had set up our tent.



















Here is our "home away from home".....how we'd LOVE a camper of some kind!! Maybe someday!! But for now the tent is fine....all four of us fit in it just fine (yes, Lacey too!!).



















And our newest purchase....a screened canopy! When it rains (which it often does in the mountains in the summer!), it's nice to have a place to escape that's not the tent!! The tent tends to get very hot and humid during the day! This gives us another option! While the screen part is supposed to keep the bugs out, we found it did the opposite! As we use it in the future, we'll perfect HOW to use it, but it was nice to have!!


And before too many people complain that I never post pictures of myself, here I am! I didn't do a very good job of getting in front of the lens this trip. I was enjoying being behind it too much!!


And a great close up of James....the "camping kid!"


And one (the only one!) of James and me that was taken this weekend!!


And a close up of Dusty.....so now you've seen real current pics of all three of us!!


Here's James concentrating on Dad teaching him to tie a fishing knot!


On Saturday afternoon, even though it was raining on and off, the boys decided to go fishing up at the lake. I stayed back, reading and resting a bit in the tent, listening to the rain! When Dusty and James came back about 2 hours later, there was great excitement.....for the first time James had "out-fished" Dad!! (Of course, Dad's busy helping James and not fishing himself, but that didn't count!! LOL) James had caught 4 nice brook trout, and kept two of them, bringing them back to camp for dinner. Here is the proud guy with his catch!!


And sitting down to enjoy the "fruit of his labor"! Ahhh, the sweet taste of success!!!


On Sunday, after we packed up our camp, we headed back to the lake for some more fishing. While no fish were caught, it was so great to see that James is truly becoming a lover of fishing, just like his Dad! It's so much fun for me to stand back and watch my boys do something together that they love so much!! James really listened to the pointers that Dusty had for him this weekend, and it showed! He's well on his way to being a great fisherman, just like Dusty!!

Here are some pictures that I took while we were at the lake....




I don't know how you can concentrate on fishing when you are surrounded by this beautiful scenery!!


There they are....the two fishing Ryans!


Some pictures of James fishing. I love the concentration he showed....he was really into it!!




I thought the reflections, of the clouds and mountain across the lake, in the water were amazing!!



And I leave you with a picture of our State Flower....the Colorado columbine!!