Hey, all! Since we had the kayaks and bikes on the CRV and because we quickly checked out the park yesterday, we headed back to Bear Creek Lake Park after a light breakfast. We were not real excited about the kayaking or biking prospects since it was about 39 and thunderstorms forecast. We got a day-use permit (Sr discount!!!) and checked out the trails for possible biking/hiking routes.
What a beautiful city park this is! It has dozens of picnic spots (many of them covered), 47 nice camping sites, 3 lakes (2 of them motorless), water ski lessons(!!!), archery, 2 golf courses, fishing peers, stables, horseback riding lessons, and 15.7 miles of hiking/biking/horseback riding trails! Good job city of Lakewood!
We decided against kayaking the lake in favor of a nice hike and then, hoping Casey Noodle would be tired after that, we would put him in the "Chariot" and do a little biking. So, we chose the Fisherman's Trail, and it was listed as a 1.3 mi hike around Bear Creek Lake. Sounded good. Off we went, not taking any water or our lunch, since it was now about 42 and very cloudy--we should be back in 20-30 minutes, tops. It was a scenic walk around the lake for 1/2 of the trail (We also didn't bring our camera on the trail, so no pix). Since it had rained recently, we came upon several detours and changes to other trails due to standing water. Soon we found ourselves in a meadow that was entirely out of sight of the lake! So....making our way in the direction we thought to be correct, we followed several different trails (all the while the skies are getting darker and rain just beginning) but couldn't get back across the creek that fed the lake for some time. Anyway, we ended up back at the car with about 5 miles on the peds. We were hungry and thirsty by this time and took our lunch to a nice picnic spot and made short work of the sandwiches and chips.
We were now in a good rain and so took a tour of the rest of the park--we were taken with the campground--we decided that we would try to stay a couple of nights after Jeff gets back from Long Beach Tuesday night. We thought it would be great to be right at the park to really spend some time yaking, biking and hiking. They have fire rings, and we're still hauling around the wood we brought from home, so another good reason to stay there!
As a side note, we often don't have television at our moho. We have 2 tv's, but they are the old-fashioned analog and we're too cheap to get the satellite hooked up. Some parks have cable, but not many. We've had television maybe 6 or 8 days since we left home. Not that it's a big deal, and we miss it less and less. We actually enjoy listening to the Mariner's games on radio more than TV, and it's a chance to catch up on our reading as well. When we get home we'll have a new novel to read, "Simone"---a debut novel by our friend Steve Dennis. Congrats, Steve!
Having said all that about the TV, we elected to watch a movie in the evening ;-). We Redboxed "The King's Speech" which we both enjoyed. Hard to believe Elizabeth is still Queen!
Sunday we went out to breakfast (thankfully, Jeff doesn't choose restaurants often, but he wanted to go to this biker breakfast buffet this morning --all you can eat for $7!!) but it was closed, darn!, so we went down the road and had a pretty big meal; not really good, just big. After, we played catch-up with laundry (4 loads--we're a dirty lot), cleanup, floors, etc. and then decided to take a drive to Central City/BlackHawk. We enjoy taking a drive to a new area on a cold, rainy, overcast day and this was the ticket. Beautiful scenery along the way, and again more trails to explore later. Gambling was the order of the day once we arrived at Central City (very much like a little, historic Reno) and we lasted all of an hour. Jeff doesn't like to gamble but tolerates me on my two or three times/yr, hour-long binge! He's a good egg.
This area is called "the richest square mile in the world"--you couldn't prove it by me, but it certainly boasts many gold mines in evidence. It's amazing how much gold and other minerals were taken from the west and southwest back in the day....must have been a heck of a wild west!
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