I’ve been burned out for quite a while. That’s no real surprise given that my family hasn’t had a real vacation since 2012 and given that I haven’t taken more than a few days off since…I don’t know when. For the past two years, I’ve been trying to put together a vacation for our family but for one reason or another it fell through. This year, I decided it was our year, and I went ahead and booked dates in April, put together a rough itinerary, and wrote the dates on the calendar. Finally, we took our Jellystone Larkspur trip.
What is Jellystone Park™ in Larkspur, Colorado?
Jellystone Park™ in Larkspur, Colorado is a themed campground that offers a unique camping experience for families. The campground in Larkspur has a variety of cabin options and RV options. It is one of many locations inspired by the Yogi Bear™ cartoon. Jellystone Park locations can be found across the United States and Canada.
The location in Larkspur was perfect for our family’s needs. We chose to stay in the Yogi Bear Cabin, which had 2 bedrooms – 1 with a bunk and 1 with a queen bed – a bathroom, a kitchenette with a refrigerator, 2 burners, and sink, and a gas barbecue and fire pit. The location we stayed at had mini golf, mini bowling, an arcade, a cafe, two swimming pools, a playground, and lots of fun events.
Our Adventure Traveling for our Jellystone, Larkspur Trip
It got kind of wild on our way to Jellystone. We didn’t quite get on the road as early as we’d hoped, so with a bunch of kid pit-stops and lunch, we came into a line of storms. For a while, the storms were in the distance, but then suddenly we had absolutely no visibility, stopped vehicles around us, and hail. Lots of hail. Finally, a car moved so we were able to keep moving through the storm and we were all safe. The kids were pretty freaked out though.
Our Jellystone Adventures
We didn’t venture out every day. Our cabin was really nice, and when we arrived, I was solidly impressed by how nice it was (I want pine paneling somewhere in my house!). To save money, and to stick to a healthier diet, we made lunches and took them with us when we did venture out and we cooked on the grill. Most nights, we had s’mores. (What’s camping without s’mores?)
We enjoyed the playground a lot, swam in the pool, played mini-golf, made crafts and took a Hey Hey Hey Ride with Boo Boo Bear. We also ventured down and had a blast at the glow foam party. (That reminds me, I need to see how much it would cost to rent a foam daddy canon thing.) Some afternoons rather than do an activity, we made art on our deck. The view was beautiful, and we got to see some deer up close our last night there.
Garden of the Gods Hike
It took two attempts to complete our hike at Garden of the Gods. The first attempt, we were rained out. If you’ve not been to this park, you must go. It is absolutely beautiful, and my photos do not do any justice to the majesty of standing inside the park under the giant red rocks. We did a shorter hike—it was about 3 miles start to finish. We also went and explored the visitor center… and didn’t leave without some souvenirs.
Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center
Following our hike at Garden of the Gods, we drove out to the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center. We’d thought about going to Manitou Springs and the Manitou Cliff Dwellings as well, but the line of cars was really long (that’s what we get for going the day before Independence Day!).
We have a big dino fan – well two big dino fans – so I wanted to be sure we got to see some cool dinosaur stuff. Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center did NOT disappoint. The docents there were really knowledgeable, we got to see fossils and we got to watch paleontologists at work through a window. That was really neat to watch.
Dinosaur Ridge
On another day, we headed up toward Denver to explore Dinosaur Ridge. Dinosaur Ridge is really really cool – you can see fossils and dinosaur tracks on the side of the hill. We visited the Discovery Center and Visitors Center, and we hiked the Dinosaur Ridge Trail. It was a bit chilly and so we wound up not doing the round trip, but it was really amazing to see real fossilized footprints in the side of the hill. I still can’t decide if Dinosaur Ridge or Garden of the Gods was my favorite part of our vacation.
Morrison Natural History Museum
My husband thought that this was the highlight of the places we visited on our Jellystone Larkspur trip. The tour guide at Morrison Natural History Museum was really really good and very engaging. There were so many real dinosaur fossils – and kids were welcome to touch some of them. The highlight of the tour was getting to be a paleontologist for a bit and work with a piece of rock that had fossils in it. One of the kids on the tour found a fossil in the rock. Our tour guide marked the spot with a marker for further investigation.
Downtown Denver Aquarium
We went to the Downtown Denver Aquarium also planning to eat dinner there because I’d read that they sometimes had mermaids in the aquariums in the dining area. Spoiler alert: We didn’t get to eat there, and we saw no mermaids. That said, the kids really enjoyed the exhibits and seeing all the sharks and fish. I loved seeing the otters. The toddler really loved the aquarium, and all four, I think, found this to be their favorite activity during our vacation.
The Importance of Scheduling Time to Do Nothing on Vacations
The original itinerary I put together for our Jellystone Larkspur trip was really fun While it felt fun when I was putting it together, when I thought about it in practical terms, it didn’t feel like it would be much of a vacation once it was done – who wants to be constantly doing things on vacation? Every day was scheduled with three activities. That also really would not have worked well for my kids.
The whole purpose of taking a vacation is to rest. So we had three days where we just stayed at Jellystone and took advantage of activities there, but also took a lot of time to just hang out in our cabin playing board games or sit out on the deck creating art and just being together as a family.
In all, it was a very good vacation, and I’m really excited to get back to work.
