Trailwest Day One: Arrival

We left our house at 7am Sunday morning for a cross country journey. After an hour or so in the car, we stopped for a quick breakfast with the grandparents at OK Cafe. Granddaddy dropped us off at the airport. Removing all the carseats, luggage and children from the car while a 'friendly' traffic cop is blowing their whistle at you is always quite a relaxing way to start off a trip. Granddaddy kindly stayed curbside with the children, our carry-on bags and the strollers while Daddy and I checked bags. (Did you know thy now charge $3 per bag plus gratuity for curbside check-in? What a racket!)



The Scott-Clapetts rumbled through the airport with Mom wearing a hiking-syle backpack and pushing a double stroller, while Daddy pushed a single stroller and pulled two roller carts with carsats bungeed to them. (Oh, and he was wearing a large bright yellow backpack.) The kids each clutched their ‘activity backpacks’ in their laps. We made our way through the curious stares of onlookers to security. Once at the security gate we had to un-bungee the car seats from the carts, remove the children from the strollers, collapse everything, take off 10 shoes and go through the x-ray machine, then put it all back together again on the other side. Whew!


An elevator ride, an underground train ride and another elevator ride later we were at our gate with 45 minutes to spare. We were thrilled to see old friends from my hometown at the gate and discover they, too, were heading to Trailwest with their three children. The children did great on the flight; exploring their backpacks of mystery items I had collected from Wal-mart, Michaels and the dollar store.

As we arrived in Colorado Springs, we set off to get our rental, install all the car seats and make the 95 mile drive to camp. Our arrival at camp was full of fun and fanfare. Because there are only about 25 families each week the arrival is very special. You are greeted at the gate by a cowgirl, and then a cowboy and cowgirl on horseback arrive. The horses put their noses in the window to the shock of our travel-weary kiddos, who weren’t sure what to make of the whole experience. We then followed the horses down the hill to a stage coach surrounded by 2 dozen costume wearing old West characters who welcomed us to camp. They took our picture and put us on the back of a wagon which drove us up to the lodge, where we were greeted by another large group of clapping, singing staff. The children were overwhelmed. We were led to our rooms, where our luggage was waiting (They had taken our car and unloaded our things while we were enjoying the fanfare and the wagon ride.) Ahhh, vacation.


The view from our room was absolutely breathtaking. We made it!

The evening was a bit rough as we tried to adjust to a two hour time difference and the aftermath of a long day of travel with only 20 minute catnaps. But looking out the window to see this amidst the chaos sure did help me feel a bit more peaceful.