After our quick few days exploring the Utah National Parks, we made our way back into Colorado for the most random stop of our trip...
the Mike the Headless Chicken Festival in Fruita, CO!
We stayed in this cute little Airbnb just a few blocks from downtown Fruita, where the festival was taking place.
We had heard about the festival from some Eureka friends and, when we found out it aligned with our trip, we had to check it out. It's just a small town festival with food trucks (our favorite was Be Crepeful as we had crepes and smoothies for dinner and again for breakfast), vendors, a few bouncy houses, and the primary reason for our visit...
the Mike the Headless Chicken 5K! We all ran the 5K with our finishing times as follows: Ellen (22:53), Staley (24:00), Zach (24:38), Briggs (26:52), and Adelie (28:30). It was a fun little race, and we all enjoyed the crepes and smoothies we got for breakfast after the race.
Fruita was a cute little town, the 5K was fun, and it was a great little side stop to our trip...and now we all have our MTHC 5K shirts as great conversation starters.
After we left Fruita, we headed towards our last national park of the trip: Black Canyon of the Gunnison.
After driving in circles and stalking other hikers, we FINALLY found a parking spot so that we could do the 1.5 mile roundtrip Warner Point Nature Trail. It had beautiful views, and we could see (and hear) the rushing river in the canyon below.
We just made one other quick stop in the park to walk down to an overlook to see the Painted Wall (as well as the river far below from another vantage point.) The Colorado scenery is just lovely. We also saw a few curly horned sheep along the road as we were driving into and out of the park.
After the national park, we were ready to head back to our hotel in Manitou Springs for our final night of the trip. We had initially thought about heading straight to Denver, but we had a little unfinished business in Colorado Springs/Manitou Springs.
We were told about a restaurant in Colorado Springs called Magnolia's Bakery and Cafe that was closed on the few days we were there at the beginning of our trip. So we made a reservation and had enough time to check into our hotel and change out of our grubby 5K/hiking clothes before heading to Magnolia's for supper.
It was delicious!! By far the best meal of our trip!! And although we were underdressed for the fanciness of the restaurant, everyone was beyond nice, the food was amazing, and the desserts were so scrumptious. They brought each of the kids a cup of fruit and a $2 bill before the meal, and then they brought us out 2 free desserts to go along with the 3 we had already ordered. We were stuffed, but it was definitely worth coming back to Colorado Springs to enjoy the restaurant.
I was also bummed when our Manitou Incline plans were initially thwarted by a storm at the beginning of the trip. Zach and the two younger kids weren't overly invested in completing the 1-mile, over 2700 step incline up the side of the mountain, so Staley and I got up early the next morning to take on the challenge.
It took us about 40 minutes to complete the intense climb, but it was a fun challenge in a beautiful place.
We got back to the hotel just as the rest of the family was heading down for breakfast, so we all had breakfast together and then the kids enjoyed some fun, relaxing pool time before we had to check out.
We finished off our time in Manitou Springs and our trip by packing up one last time, going back to Josh and John's for some more of their ice cream, and then driving to Denver to drop off our rental car and fly home.
We fit in so much in our week of traveling. We put about 1500 miles on our rental car, but also explored by plane, by train, by raft, by foot.
We saw a lot, learned a lot, and visited varied and unique places in southern Colorado and eastern Utah.
We marked off 4 new states and 5 new national parks.
Although all those hours in the car resulted in our fair share of bickering (primarily about who had to sit in the middle seat), complaining, snack requests, naps, and road-weariness, I'm always impressed by our road tripping family. It's amazing how a good audiobook makes the hours go by! (Our books this time were the 'Wee Free Men'-the big hit! and 'Pax'-another good one.)
I always love planning, traveling, discovering new places, and embracing the randomness that comes our way.
It was another great family trip! I'm already looking to seeing where our next adventure takes us!
