It snowed

 

Colorado 8

 And yes, we really did see an Alaskan number plate

Colorado 7: Back to Denver

 Our last day we returned to Denver. I took the girls to the science and nature museum, which I remember from when I was four. Or more to the point, I remember this sabre tooth head which made a noise when you put your hand in to donate money. Sadly it was not plugged in. 

The girls really enjoyed this activity room where you could measure lots of things about your body. 

Before the museum we had sushi for lunch

Colorado 6: Black Canyon

 Another day, another park, another junior ranger badge. This one, the black canyon of the gunnison, went down rather than up. One of the cliff faces we saw was twice as high as the empire state building, which was completely incomprehensible. We finished the day off at a ski hotel which, this being the off season, was empty, so the girls had a huge swimming pool and games room to themselves. They would probably have been happy to have spent the whole trip there. 

The striped cliff opposite is 2x the Empire State building in height. There is a river (the Gunnison) at the bottom. It's a long way away.

Retro arcade games at the hotel

Hiking 2 miles for the daily ice cream

Picnic time

Colorado 5: Colorado Monument

The Colorado monument was my favourite of all the national parks/momuments we visited in Colorado. Basically it's a lot of very tall rocks that you can look down on. They're very impressive. The girls did their 2 miles of hiking, so got ice cream, and also completed the activity book to be sworn in as park rangers and collect another badge.