Mountain

Here’s the thing about living in Colorado. You really aren’t supposed to be indoors. When you come into work on Monday, the first thing they ask you is, “Whatda do?” They aren’t looking for, “We smeared pizza grease all over our TV,” as an answer.

Consequently, I do feel a little anxiety when we reach hour four of Spongebob Squarepants on Saturday mornings. After lunch we decided it was high time our sons experienced a mountain. Seeing that we live less than an hour’s drive from, like, all of them.

So we packed up the boys and drive to Lookout Mountain. Now, those of you who live in Colorado will probably poo poo Lookout Mountain because it is technically more of a hill. It takes zero skill to get to the top (unless you call driving while Elijah asks 1,000 extremely loud questions a skill). Know what I say to that? Shut up, jerks.

We arrived at the trailhead and let Grover out of the back of the car. A Ranger immediately ran out of the building and yelled, “No Dogs!”

Grover looked at us like, “Welp. That’s that. Let’s head back to Denver.” And then we stuffed him back in the car.

As we hiked along the snowy trail (here’s a hint for you hikers. Don’t wear mesh running shoes when hiking on a snowy trail), Elijah kept asking me if we were going to see any animals like at the zoo.

Just as I was explaining that his yelling of “Are we going to see any animals” guaranteed we would only see animal poop on this hike, we stumbled across a group of elk. At least I think they were elk. They were huge, looked like deer but with a lot more antlers, and they were wearing “Kiss me I’m an elk” t-shirts.

I have to say, I was a lot more scared than I thought I’d be. These were wild animals. With huge swords sticking out of their heads. What do we do if they charge? What do we do if they try to eat us? What do we do if they ask us for money?

Diana and Elijah were far less scared. Elijah wanted to pet them (“No!” I yelled a lot louder than necessary) and Diana simply wanted to marvel at their majesty. Luca just yelled, “Go Go (Grover)!”

In the end, the trail lead 100 or so yards around them and they had absolutely no interest in asking us for money. They simply stared at us and contemplated life before yuppies started tromping all over their home and talking way to loudly.