The bike shop is closed on Easter Sunday. When I realized that (again – somehow I forget EVERY year!), I asked Matt to take an afternoon off so we could go somewhere different. We wanted to go somewhere new, but not really far away, that had cool stuff for us to run and ride, but also to do together. We’d heard really good things about Lake Pueblo State Park from one of our friends, and I had no trouble reserving a camping spot near the lake itself.

We packed up the car while Matt worked, and got out at a very reasonable 12:45. 

The drive down was quite uneventful, thankfully it’s only just shy of a two hour drive. Even stopping twice for food and gas, we made it before 3:00 pm, which left us some time to actually enjoy the day. 

We pitched camp, got all our stuff out of the car, and settled in. 

Matt decided he was going for a ride, and so I went for a walk. I discovered an awesome place to watch the sunset, and maybe even the sunrise the next few days….

We both got back, chilled, and made dinner – fancy ground beef mac and cheese. Yum! 

After watching sunset, we went back and lit up the LavaBox for the first time – it’s REALLY cool! Puts out just enough heat to warm up our toes and gives us something to stare at until we get super tired. And it’s a Colorado company – always a bonus to support local!

I woke up at the ass crack, as I am known to do… Totally worth it! I made some coffee and headed to the point to shoot the sunrise. It was awesome!

I went back to camp and had some more coffee, and by then Matt was up. We had bagels for breakfast and sat around reading books til it got somewhat warmer. 

Eventually, we took off for the south side of the lake, where most of the trails are. Matt rode, I ran…

Lake Pueblo is a pretty cool place. It’s desert-like, with a giant lake and views of mountains behind it. Quite pretty, actually. 

After we were done, we had lunch back at the campsite and chilled out for a short while. Then we headed out for showers and dinner. 

Oy. The showers were FREEZING. I sucked it up and bathed anyway, even washed my hair, but it was one of those in-the-water-for-a-second-then-out-again situations…  Definitely woke me up!

Downtown Pueblo was beautiful with all the flowering trees! Spring hadn’t quite sprung in Denver at this point, and seeing all the gorgeousness did something wonderful to our spirits!

We went to the Pueblo Riverwalk for dinner, walking around for a bit first. We had a beer at Brues Brewing, the dinner at 1129 Spirits & Eatery. My mushroom and Swiss burger was delicious!

Afterwards, we went back to camp, where I had just enough time to grab a time lapse of sunset… Think I’m gonna have to start my own “Confessions of a Time Lapse Addict” series! Check out the video linked below to see them!

Then in the tent by 8:04 to read books and sleep.

I woke up with plenty of time to catch the sunrise again. Beautiful, of course. I mean, when ISN’T a sunrise gorgeous?

Breakfast was egg tacos, and we didn’t dilly dally much before we took off. 

I’ve wanted to go to Bishop Castle since the first time I heard about it years ago. It was still an hour from camp, so I also found a hike we could do that was really close by, just to have something else to do. 

When we got to the turnoff to the trailhead, the gate across was closed. Hmmm. Didn’t exactly occur to me that the road would be closed for the summer… Oops. 

To be honest, neither one of us was particularly upset. I’d come up with a nine mile loop, and we were both pretty tired, so we decided to just go out the road and see how far we made it. Worked out really well. We discovered a cool little campground (Davenport, I think), and hiked out the trail maybe half a mile before the ice sheets started. We turned around right about then. We ended up hiking about four and a half miles, which was about perfect. 

We went to Bishop Castle after that – but you’ll have to wait til next time to read about that. It absolutely deserves its own post and video!

We went back to camp, getting back fairly early since we didn’t hike that far. Had some lunch, went down to the lake… Matt jumped in, of course. That water was FREEZING. 

Then sausages for dinner, and a different spot for sunset. More LavaBox fire for a little while, then bed.

Hey guess what. I was awake before sunup again, what a surprise….

I watched (and photographed) the sunrise from right on the water. Even managed not to fall in!

We stuffed all the things and had some breakfast when I got back. Didn’t sit around too much since it was gonna be 500 degrees again. 

Matt did a ride, I ran a little…

We had some lunch at a picnic 🧺 area and then headed to DiSanti Farms, a farmer’s market that our buddy Hugo has raged about. 

We drove up… and it was decidedly closed. Dammit. Oh well. So we headed home instead. 

The End.

Here’s the video! Please like and subscribe!