Memorial Day weekend getaway

This Memorial Day weekend we were blessed with something that doesn't happen very often for us these days...two days in a row where John and I both had off from work!  Thus, we decided we'd have to use one of them to take a little day trip as a family, and we chose to head up to Estes Park/Rocky Mountain National Park because it's fairly close and such an easy, and yet beautiful, drive.  The night before we left we noticed the forecast was calling for a very windy day, but we decided we could tough it out and went anyway.

We packed a picnic lunch, and I had visions of us finding a nice picnic area with a good view in the national park where we could lay out a blanket and let Evan play while we lounged around, snacking and taking in the view.  However, it ended up being far too chilly, especially with the winds that literally took Evan's breath away.  Let alone if we had set out a picnic it would have easily blown away.  So we ended up spending most of our day in the car.  We did find a nice overlook where we parked for our lunch though. :)

We did manage to get out of the car in one spot that seemed more protected from the wind so that Evan could enjoy some of the great outdoors up close.  (We're working on getting him over his fear of tree branches/leaves...for some reason when we're outside around trees he seems uncomfortable and afraid of them.)

Given that the wind was kind of ruining our plans in the park by seriously limiting what we could do, we figured we'd call it a day early.  However, we made one last stop in the park to change Evan's diaper.  We hadn't really planned ahead for how we'd do this in the national park, and given there aren't changing stations in the outhouse-style bathrooms, we were left with either doing it outside or finding somewhere in the car to do the dirty work.  Outside wouldn't have been a big issue if it weren't for the wind.  If we had brought the SUV, the back cargo area is nice and flat, but we brought the Civic to be fuel efficient.  Evan doesn't really fit on the front seat so well anymore, and even in the past the seat isn't flat so he used to roll off the mat too easily.  Along the same lines as using the back cargo area of the SUV, John figured the best spot would be in the trunk of the car!  While it sounds kind of dodgy, it worked!  While I didn't snap a photo of the change, I grabbed one of Evan and daddy afterward.  Yes, it was still windy and Evan's breath was probably just stolen by a dreadful gust as I took this shot.

All in all, it was a nice escape as a family.  While we spent most of the time in the car, the point was that we spent that time together.  And in the end we did get to explore some new areas of the park that we hadn't been to before.  We saw some elk and even drove by the mansion where we got married for memory's sake.  And I even took time to stop by the cherry store on our way back home to pick up some fruity goodies!  I really wish we had more weekends like this.