Birthday in Centennial

We returned to the historic Mountain View Hotel this year for my birthday. This was the big six zero and I just wanted to get out of town and do some hiking. Here is my post from last year. http://hikeprayquilt.blogspot.com/2011/09/hiking-in-snowies.html

We were the only guests on my birthday this year and it was nice and quiet being midweek before the Labor Day weekend. We drove around first checking out some trailheads and then picked up trail maps and deep woods insect spray at the tiny local store when we arrived in town. We had a great dinner at the very rustic Trading Post restaurant and bar. We sat by a window looking out into the garden with daisies and hollyhocks. Click on any of the pictures to make them bigger.

After dinner we took Penelope on a walk around the town past the house that we used to visit with our kids when S.’s parents spent their summers there. The present owner has made a lot of improvements but the kids should still recognize it. It is painted green now but used to be a rustic red. The large white building with a green roof is the hotel from up and behind on the hill. The red house in the pictures is the house where two retired schoolteachers named Jane and Ros lived and the kids used to go visit them. There were some pink clouds over Sheep Mountain as the sun set. Our kids might  remember going to the local museum in town that has a caboose and other farm and mining implements outside. It shows up as a yellow/gold building lowest in the pictures through some houses. A brief rain shower moved in from the south right as we got back to the hotel. 

I wrenched my hip last year climbing over boulders and suffered for two weeks afterwards. This year we decided to explore some of the lower trails in the Snowy Range and settled on the River Trail on the Lower North Fork of the Little Laramie river. See next post.