Makes My Monday

I'm still "coming down" from our vacation high, so what Makes My Monday is: Looking back at where we stayed last week on our anniversary getaway!

I'm just gonna skip the narrative (at first, anyway) and get straight to the photos, ok?

The View Around Us
From the Seldom Inn in Ouray, Colorado

Below: from the front porch, looking south over the rooftops of the tiny town of Ouray.

A few steps east of our front door, the Uncompahgre River, running high! Behind the cabin, to the west: the Sister Peak

(Sisters, did you know that was what that peak behind the cabin was called? I didn't either until I looked it up this morning! Isn't that funny?)

From the front porch: The foothills toward Cascade Mountain, to the east of Ouray

Off the front porch, to the south: Abrams Mountain

The Cabin
Across the deck on the side of the 1879 log structure. Don't you love the crooked window?

Here are the chairs around the front deck.

And the little bench by the front door ~ you can see the neighbor on this side of the cabin. Dan is heading down the steps toward the separate door that leads to a tiny basement laundry room. The backdoor, with the goofy doorknob smack in the middle of the door, and no lock but a hook-and-eye latch. See how it comes straight out into a path between two giant boulders?

Here's Dan peeking his head out from the above pathway, down the narrow alley that runs behind the cabin, out to the deck where I'm standing with my camera, near where our car was parked.
Check this out. We thought this was so cool; it's a little cave-like dugout with a half-timbered interior, constructed under the rocks behind the cabin. We wondered if its original purpose was to be a storage area/root cellar, or if, possibly, it was the original dwelling place of the cabin's builder. We can only guess.

Inside the dugout. Scary! It was pitch black except for the flash from the camera, so we couldn't actually see what it looked like until we reviewed the photo on the camera later.

Looking up at the boulders and the back door from the door of the dugout.The "secret" crack that leads from the rock hideout behind the cabin to the side deck near where the car is parked. (Though it is roughly the shape of my particular figure, you'd have to be skinnier than me to fit through this crack...)

Coming out from between the big boulders to the hill and forest behind the cabin

Looking down from on top of the rock hideout to the upper story of the back of the cabin.

The tiny grass meadow tucked in between the rocks.

One of a couple little caves under the boulders.
Tucked into the rocks -- haven't figured out what this flower is yet, but it smells like hyacinth. (We put a sprig in the car and it smelled heavenly all the way back to Denver Saturday morning.)
And these, I think are mountain laurel. They're all over the mountains right now.

Inside the Cabin

There was a landing upstairs with a small round table, games and puzzles; a loveseat and television; a tiny bedroom tucked under the eves with two twin beds; and an itsy bits powder room. (I can't believe I didn't get any pictures upstairs! How did I miss doing that? Could be I just never actually got up there with the camera in my hand ~ it was a trick getting up those steep stairs!

Downstairs had a cozy kitchen/living room area, with a ceiling that rose up to the peak of the roof; a nice bathroom with all the amenities, and a bedroom with a queen bed, built-in drawers, a big closet, and the crookedest walls and floor you could have without worrying about the house falling down. The whole cabin had a certain feel of being aboard ship -- there was not an inch of wasted space in the whole place; there were little cabinets, drawers, and cubbyholes built in everywhere, and it took a day or two to get our sea legs in the wavy bedroom.

We were a walk to the main street of town -- specifically to the Backstreet Bagel -- and a walk to a score of good hiking trails. It was perfect. Do I need to say we had a wonderful, wonderful time?

I'll post some pictures of some of our hikes later this week ~ and some menus from some of the Lisa-and-Dan-cooking-without-having-to-consider-kid routine. (Now that was a treat, I have to tell you!)

Hope this hasn't been a yawner. This is kinda like the old slideshows that people made fun of in the sixties and seventies, isn't it? But it has been fun documenting our vacation, and reliving it a bit in the process!

OH! And, thanks no doubt to the prayers and happy thoughts out there, I'm happy to report that we got back to Denver in time to attend Theresa and Michelle's piano recital Saturday (Which was lovely; they both did spendidly!), and upon arriving home, found most everything in shipshape order, with no serious complaints from anyone. Only Gabe was still wearing the exact same clothes he had on when we left Tuesday morning... And, predictably, the laundry had piled up considerably.... But, I'm not complaining! Makes me feel needed. The kids were all very good, and life is sure sweet.

Thanks, kids! And thanks, Grandma and Grandpa, for all the help!

** For more Makes My Monday posts, go check in on Cheryl!