Where's Nassau Street?

We took our first weekend getaway to a different part of Colorado last week. And where did we go?

Where else?

Mt. Princeton

Edith thought Princeton had changed a fair bit. 

We could have visited Mt. Yale instead, just north of Mt. Princeton in the Collegiate Range...

But Mt. Princeton is home to the natural hot springs bubbling out of a river and the little family resort built around those. We were upgraded to a lovely cabin:

Looking down from the French doors toward one of the pools:

Shortly after we arrived, the snow started falling. Have you ever been swimming outdoors when the lounge chairs looked like this?

The girls brought snowballs into the pool, but Alice didn't quite understand the implications of dunking hers in the water:

The man-made pools were built next to the river and are fed by the springs. There were about 30 little natural pools bubbling up along the edges of the river, in which you also could soak. Because the air temps were in the 40s and the pool were no more than a foot deep, we saw lots of people in them lying as flat as they could, like seals sunning themselves.

Of the manmade pools, there was a hot one that I preferred but the girls couldn't stomach. And there was an adults-only pool (as in quiet, not racy) that Tom and I wanted to try, but we never found an opportunity.

Indeed, while we had a good time, we had to reconcile ourselves to what a vacation with little people means. Despite three bedrooms in the cabin, we all wound up together, because the girls were too scared to sleep by themselves in a strange place. We spent almost all our time swimming, and we spent almost all our swimming time in the man-made pool that was bath temperature, because that was the only activity that didn't prompt whines and tantrums. Having removed the girls from their natural habitat, we found that that was about as much change as they could handle. They wanted to eat exactly what they do at home; they did not want to explore the area; and without their own supply of toys and books, they weren't about to leave us alone for any length of time. It was fine--but it did make me wonder at what stage a vacation will feel like a restful getaway again. (To be fair, it wasn't all the girls: Bringing 12 hours of grading to fit in over the course of a weekend trip doesn't add to the restfulness.)

The one thing that Tom and Edith did work in other than swimming was a horseback ride. They were lucky to have signed up for an unpopular time of day, and so enjoyed a private ride with two great guides.

At the horse ranch

On our last morning, the girls swam themselves to exhaustion and were conked out almost as soon as we got in the car headed home. Tom and I took advantage of the peace, quiet, and uncomplaining riders to extend our drive. We went north a bit to see more of the Middle Range, wending our way through Breckenridge and other la-di-da ski areas we'd never seen. The most amazing part was the change in weather over the course of 2 hours (and about 2,000 feet). We went from sunny, dry high country...

... to snowstorms and 3 or 4 feet of standing snow, feeling like we'd rewound to Christmas season...

...then back again.