Something about Nothing: Black Forest Fire and Breckenridge

The weekend after Vail, we were supposed to have a nice quiet weekend at home and ride in the Starlight Spectacular race around Colorado Springs... but our plans got a little changed once the Black Forest Fire started on Tuesday.

It started about 7 miles south of my parents house and about 5 miles north of Colorado Springs. I could see the smoke plume from my desk at work and called my mom to have her go see where it was. A day later my parents were under a mandatory evacuation from their house because the fire had grown and was heading their direction. My brother and I drove up through a lot of smoke on Wednesday and helped them pack up their camper and cars and head out. Mom was really ready to go once a police officer drove up their driveway with the lights and sirens going asking us to leave as soon as possible. We left about five minutes later.

Photo from my phone of the smoke plume

The next day, Thursday, was my brother and his family's turn at being evacuated, somehow my dad and I both made it to their house before the cops had blocked off all the roads in, so we helped pack up everything we could fit in our cars and they headed to my brother's in laws house. They luckily were able to get back home on Friday when their mandatory evacuation orders were lifted. My parents were still not allowed back home so they decided to head up to Breckenridge to stay the weekend with some of their oldest friends! And Mikey and I got invited, well really, I invited myself. We didn't know if the bike ride was still even going to go on and we had lined up my brother as a babysitter, but they were still out of their house when we left for Breck.

So, I had Friday off and went up to Breck with my parents and then Mikey drove up after work. We went for a hike to the Sallie Barber mine on Saturday morning and then hit up the pool during the afternoon. For our hike, I pushed Noah up in the stroller until the trail got a little too rocky and then he got to go on his first hike in the baby bjorn carrier. Mikey rode his bike up the trail and then ended up heading the other side of the mine to another rode that circled back into town. He met a lady that taught mountain biking classes in Israel and she was nice enough to give him a few pointers for his trip down.

We got everyone to hit up the pool, which was much warmer than the pool in Vail. I think they all came so they could see what Noah did while in a big pool!

After the pool, I'm pretty sure everyone took a nap. We had a lovely evening dinner and then walked to downtown in search of some ice cream. PS, if you are looking for ice cream after nine at night, just go straight to the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, everywhere is closed! It was a great weekend away from all the fire news and we found out on Saturday that my parents house was untouched by the fire and on Sunday they could return home!