We get to run away to the mountains today! We got up at a reasonable hour, made coffee, slurped up some cereal, finished throwing our stuff in the car, and off we went. 

The drive was fairly uneventful, and we stopped up on Kenosha Pass and hiked for a bit. We went out the east side, and hiked maybe a mile or so. We were hoping for better weather and views, but while the views were pretty,  the weather was mostly meh. 

When we got back to the car, we kept on driving and got to Fairplay fairly quickly. We found South Park City Museum, parked, paid our money, and went in. 

All you ever hear about South Park is about the TV show. While it’s not exactly a real town – it’s more a geographical area in Colorado – it’s definitely something. The museum had taken a bunch of old mining buildings and gathered them, as well as new buildings, and created a small old town feel, complete with staged doctors offices and an undertaker’s workshop, among others. It’s pretty cool to see what an old mining town could have looked like way back when. 

When we’d had enough, we wandered the town of Fairplay – all three blocks of it – and found lunch at the Park Bar in town. A grilled chicken sandwich for me, a burger for Matt, a beer for both of us, and we sat out on the back patio that overlooked the river where some guys were fishing. The food was decent, the view was better, and we had quite a pleasant lunch. 

After lunch, we moved the car – we were still parked at the museum – and went to the Snitching Lady Distillery, which several people had told us we had to check out. 

I had a Parson Brown, a smoky Old Fashioned that was really good, especially after the ice melted a little and the flavors blended a bit. Matt had a Lady on the Rocks, a rum Old Fashioned that was also really good. 

We hung out a bit longer, and had a second round – a Snitch (whiskey sour) for me and a Scarlet Lady (a strawberry whiskey concoction), which we liked even better than the first round… 

Eventually we cashed out, got back in the car, and decided to drive up Hoosier Pass for a second…

Then, we went to find our cabin. We did, pulled in, and went inside. 

Oh my god, it was SO cute! It was a pretty good size, with a ¾ wall between the bedroom and the kitchen living room, and it was perfect for the two of us. Nice and clean and welcoming and comfortable! 

We unloaded the car and settled in. We chilled out and eventually made dinner – tacos and nachos, yum! 

We (okay, I) watched the sunset and then watched some tv. I fell asleep on the couch and then we went to bed. 

Oh my goodness, I think that HAS to be the most comfortable bed I’ve ever slept in! It was amazing! 

Anyway. I woke up well before sunrise, as I do, and made some coffee. I drank it as the sun came up (while taking an obligatory time lapse), and settled in on the couch to wait for Matt to wake up. 

He did eventually, he had some coffee, and we made some breakfast. After eggs, toast, and orange juice, we got some stuff together and got ready for our hike. We were going a whopping three miles, so not like we needed a bunch of stuff, but I wanted to take most of the camera gear with me, so I had to figure out what went where. 

We got to the Limber Grove trailhead and started hiking. It wasn’t long – to the random scree field half a mile in – when we realized we’d been on that trail before for a wedding years ago, so that was fun to remember. 

At the end of the scree field is a grove of bristlecone pines, which are these cool, old, gnarled pines that have been beaten into submission by the wind, some of them over thousands of years. They’re really fun to look at, and we spent FOREVER wandering around, photographing and filming them. 

Eventually we moved on and hiked the rest of the trail, but those trees were the highlight of the whole thing. We reached the other end of the trail and turned around. 

When we got back to the grove of bristlecones, we hung out even longer, getting some time lapses of the clouds behind the trees… How do you turn a 3.1 mile hike into a three hour endeavor? Stop and film or photograph every little detail on the trail… 

We got back to the car after photographing and filming even more by the river at the trailhead and decided to drive down the road a bit then stop for lunch. 

I made sandwiches, Matt flew the drone… We were on a gorgeous road in the middle of nowhere, one of the most ridiculously washboarded roads I’ve ever been on, in fact, but who’s counting?  The view was spectacular, and Matt got some good stuff flying up the valley. It was gorgeous. 

Afterwards, we tried to find an old cemetery called Buckskin Joe, which was at the site of an old mining settlement, and we found a cemetery, alright, but some of the people buried there had died in 2025. Not exactly old… We decided not to film anything there and just went back to the cabin. 

The afternoon was absolutely beautiful, and we cracked open a bottle of wine (one of the ones we’d bought at a grocery store in Spain, super cheap!), and enjoyed it out on the back lawn in the very well placed adirondack chairs back there. It was a lovely afternoon. 

We downloaded the drone footage from earlier in the day as well as the stuff of the cabin from yesterday, which was fun to look at…

Eventually, it was dinner time, and we had the charcuterie board I’d brought with, along with another Spanish grocery store bottle of red. SO good. 

We spent some time after that playing with photos and videos, Matt flying the drone some more and then me staying up to try to get some night photos. Unfortunately, the area was still kinda bright and then the moon was super bright too, so I didn’t get anything too good. 

At least we got to hang out by the fire pit and have some more wine… when we were done, I was tired and it was past my bedtime and we went to bed. 

The next morning, I got up and made coffee, as is my usual, and watched a beautiful sunrise. Unfortunately, we had to go home today… 

We made pancakes when Matt got up and then packed up our stuff. We finished loading up the car, then headed out to our hike for the day , the Beaver Creek Trail. 

It was kinda meh, really, at least the first part of it, just a nice wide trail through some trees. Pretty enough, but nothing super spectacular. There were some teepee type things, which were kinda cool, but nothing special like I said. 

Eventually, we got to a road and saw that the trail continued on the other side. There was a cool boardwalk over a stream, which was mostly dry… It was pretty, at least. We crossed the stream, then we went out a little bit further, and got some really pretty views. Eventually, we turned around and made it back to the car via the road. 

We headed back through Fairplay, where we got out of the car and wandered around the other street in town that we hadn’t explored the other day. When we’d had enough, we got back in the car and drove home. 

Here’s the video: