Colorado is Cool-Aiden's teenage trip

Aiden's teenage trip finally happened.  Because of COVID closures, we decided to wait to go until this summer.  So, it was a year late.  Aiden had a hard time deciding where to go.  He didn't want to go and "see" things like the girls did.  He wanted to go and "do" things.  After making a list of all the fun things to do in a few big cities, he settled on Denver Colorado.  

We rode the tram into the city to pick up our rental car

When we landed, we got settled and then went to the 16th street mall to walk around.  It's a street that is blocked off for shopping/eating.  And that's exactly what we did.

This boy ordered buffalo wings every chance he got!

The first day was spent at an Adventure Park.  He and I went on a ziplining course for a few hours.  It was really fun!  Our last zipline was pretty high and nearly 1/4 mile long.

  After lunch, we tackled this ropes course.  It was not for the faint of heart.  At four stories tall, even walking across a beam seemed scary.  But, they had all kinds of hard and interesting obstacles.  We had to ride a "horse", walk across a wobbly canoe, hang from a board by your fingertips, or ride a skateboard.  Aiden tried them all, and did pretty well.  He was always up for the challenge.  By the end of the day, our muscles had nothing left. 

Aiden riding a bike across a beam

 The next day, we went white water rafting.  It was so much fun!  The rafting was rough enough to be a little exciting, but still very manageable. We all wished we could have gone longer.  It was definitely a highlight of the trip.

After rafting, we got some pizza and drove into town to an archery range.  We decided that if we ever needed to survive on what we could hunt, we would probably die.

Except Brent may be able to feed us. As long as the animals didn't move.

We stopped at a little Mexican Ice Cream shop on the way back.

 

We drove up the mountain to Winter Park the next day. We got park passes which allowed us to ride the Alpine slide all day.  Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate.  After riding the slide twice, it was closed due to lightning and  we spent most of the time waiting for it to reopen.  

We rode the lift up and then the slide closed, so we had to hike down the mountain.

But,  we did play a highly intense game of mini golf while we waited.

We finally gave up and spent the rest of the day at the Denver Aquarium.  It was pretty cool.  We got to pet the stingrays and Aiden got up and close with some fish.

We ate dinner next to a huge aquarium wall.  Aiden made sure to order seafood, just so things would be awkward. lol

The next day, we tried the Alpine Slide again and were able to get a few hours of rides in before another storm hit.  I was really glad because we all really liked the slide.  Except when I ran into an the old man in front of me and made him soooo mad.  eeek sorry!

This was our lunch view at Winter Park. 

On thy way down the mountain, we forced Aiden to do a short hike.  It was so gorgeous and the weather was amazing.  He was a good sport about it.  We had to hurry back to avoid lightning as we were at the very top of the mountain.

I'll admit, during this hike, I was seriously questioning our life choices.  Why in the world do we live in AZ?!!

We were all pretty tired that evening.  Aiden begged us to just stay in the hotel and let him play Ipad.  But, we made him go to a Rockies MLB game instead.

It was a beautiful evening and we just sat in the upper section, ate nachos and visited. Brent taught Aiden a bit about baseball.  Afterwards, Aiden said it was lot more fun than he thought it would be and he was glad we made him go.  

Saturday was our last day, but we had a few hours before we had to be back at the airport.  So, we figured out how to rent these scooters that are all around town and went for a little ride.  Denver has a river in the middle of the city with trails, so we had a nice place to go. 

 We then got lunch at an indoor food market and headed to the airport.  There was some trouble with cancelled flights, but we were lucky enough to get on some later flights and arrived home only a few hours late.

These trips are always one of my favorite things.  Brent and I loved spending time with Aiden and doing some new adventures.  I think Aiden would love to live in a place that allowed him to do more of these things regularly.  I would too.  I came home with a renewed conviction to make the drive to places where we can do fun things like rafting and hiking.  Also, during this week, I was reminded how funny Aiden is.  He had me cracking up on more than one occasion.  He got a little tired of having to make all the decisions and kept hoping we'd just eat wings or mac and cheese every night.  We all had a great time and I hope Aiden remembers this week as a time we dedicated to being with him.  He's pretty fun and we love him!