America's Month: July

- July 30, 2013

The Fourth of July was fairly anti-climactic due to the drought, but we did go down to Aspen to watch their parade. It was a nice parade with many fun floats. I would recommend it. All the firework shows were cancelled so it didn't really feel like the 4th. Since the holiday was on a Thursday, Brian and I took Friday off to make a long weekend out of it.

To make the most of our time off, we hiked up to the Savage Lakes outside of Basalt. It's a beautiful hike along cascading waterfalls. For a while we didn't even care if it we made it to the top; the walk up was enough in itself. But the top was totally worth it. There's an upper and lower alpine lake with great views and lots of areas for camping. We decided next year we'll backpack up and stay the night.

Ew.

That next week we packed up and drove 16 hours up to Twin Lakes, Idaho for a Stoess family reunion. The drive gave us a lot of quality time looking at Utah, Montana, and Idaho.

She really wasn't a happy camper unless she was sitting on our laps.

We had a nice time! We started off the stay with a nice evening at Silverwood Amusement Park. Why they put roller coasters in the middle of nowhere in Idaho, I'll never know, but it worked out well for us. The best part of the evening? I got to be there when Brian's brother, Aaron, rode his first roller coaster! I told them he had to ride in the front seat for his first time. Brian said when we started to go over the first drop Aaron simply said, "Oh. That's steep".

The verdict: "It was fun but...what's the point?"

Some would say the point is to have fun. :) I love Aaron.

Brian and I made sure Aaron rode all the quintessential amusement park rides. We took him on the Tilt-A-Whirl (which I honestly had the most fun on- I had forgotten how fun that ride is. I was laughing with such pure joy, I was crying), the log flume, and the white water raft ride. The problem with that last ride is that we rode it as the sun was setting and we got royally soaked and froze our assets the rest of the night.

We rode the train together and my other favorite part of the evening goes like this:

The train ride takes you to an old mine where bandits come out and commandeer the train. They put on a show and then walk the train making people give them money (which they later announce goes to a charity). A pre-teen girl sitting directly behind us got up and started beating the bandit with her purse. She seriously beat him up and he ran for his life.

It was awesome.

Siblings on a train.

We finished the night on the carousel to round out Aaron's first amusement park experience.
All-in-all, a great night! Two thumbs up.

The rest of the time, Brian played hour after hour after hour of games with his dad and brother (zzzzzzzzzz... I'm sorry, I think I dozed off for a bit) while I spent my time chit-chatting, swimming in the lake, and sunbathing whilst reading my latest guilty pleasure novel. We tried to teach Stella to like the water but I don't think we made much progress. She takes after me (yes, I'm going to annoy all you parents out there by pretending I somehow birthed my fur baby) in that when she's uncomfortable in a situation she panics and makes it harder than it has to be.