The Rustands: Grand Junction Trip

February 7-9

Matt attended The Wildlife Society annual conference in Grand Junction in early February so the kids and I took advantage of his hotel room and joined him. Matt left on Tuesday afternoon and the kids and I left on Wednesday afternoon, arriving just before dinnertime that evening. It's a 5-hour drive from Canon but it went well with just one stop to stretch our legs. Matt booked a room at a Residence Inn so the room had a little kitchenette and more space than standard hotel rooms. It was totally great for the 6 of us! The kids and I had zero plans for our time in Grand Junction. We ate dinner, swam, watched some tv and went to bed the first night. Thursday morning we ate breakfast, watched a show, went swimming, ate lunch at the hotel room (I brought food so we didn't have to eat out) and then hit the town. We spent about an hour and a half at the library (so neat!) and then went to one store to pick up a few things I was looking for. We were going to hit up the awesome ice cream sundaes at Sam's club but the deli was closed for construction. We went to McDonald's for sundaes instead and - SHOCK - I even let the kids play at the play place! After our playtime at the indoor playground, we went searching for a park to burn some energy off at an outdoor playground. Boy, did we find one! I remember there being a big soccer complex near our old church (remember when we drove an hour to Junction to attend Canyon View Vineyard church while we were living in Rifle? Yep!) so we went that direction. We found some amazing playground equipment and spent the remainder of the afternoon there. Goodness, the kids (and I!) had so much fun. It was a beautiful day and we were foot-loose and fancy free, skipping and hopping from one thing to the next as if we didn't have a care in the world. Fabulous, I tell you. I pulled the kids out of school on Wednesday at noon so they missed one and a half days of school, and I can't think of a better reason to miss school other than to play and be together as a family. We totally did just that. (Ok, except for Matt who was stuck in meetings... which was the reason we came in the first place...) We ate ~~Easy Mac~~ dinner with Matt before he had to go back for an evening banquet, and then the kids and I hit up the pool. We swam on Friday morning after breakfast as well, but I have zero pictures of us swimming because, you know, I was a tad busy! The kids had so much fun in the pool. Every time we were there, we had the place to ourselves. It was great! There was a little dessert reception one night at the hotel so we had some brownies, lemon bars, and tortilla chips while we watched HGTV, a luxury for us since we don't have cable. Don't worry - we watched some PBS cartoons for the kids as well.

Matt's conference was done on Friday at noon, so we packed up and left Grand Junction around 1. We drove home a different way, taking some time to drive up to our old house in Rifle so the kids could see where we used to live. Charlie was pretty excited to see where we brought him home from the hospital! We continued our journey home with a short stop in Glenwood Springs at their new library (really nice!) and to stretch our legs a bit. Then, it was back to the interstate, taking us through Glenwood Canyon and eventually through Vail and up Vail pass. I hadn't driven that stretch of I70 since we used to live on the western slope! It was super fun to see! We cut off at Frisco and came down through Breckenridge, another place that I haven't ever seen in the winter. We only go to Breck in the summer! We grabbed some things at the grocery store for dinner (a huge mistake on a Friday night - soooo many people, and many were fresh off the mountain!) before finishing the drive home. It was a great little driving tour of the state! PLUS, when we got home, we still had Saturday and Sunday to be together at home. It was a great break from our normal routine!

I snapped a bunch of pictures at the park in Grand Juntion. The equipment was amazing!