Vacation: Colorado; Budget, Meals, and Reviews

Meal Planning, each meal served 4 adults and 2 children

Breakfasts:
Biscuits and Gravy - 24 biscuits cooked in a dutch oven over the fire. (I could have made less but parts of some were inedible)
3 pkgs instant gravy (6 cups) and 1 roll of sausage

Skillet Scramble - 12 eggs, 2 cups Wright bacon pieces, 8 oz cream cheese, shredded cheddar cheese

Pancakes - Hungry Jack -just add water pancake mix (I made the entire box)

Instant Oatmeal

Power Bars (on hiking mornings)

Lunches:
Power Bars

Lunchmeat Sandwiches
chips

PB & J
chips

NOTE: at the high altitude bread goes stale in minutes. Seal sandwiches in bags if you aren't eating immediately and seal your bread bags well so you don't come back to a brick.


Dinners:
Tacos - Pre cooked and seasoned meat, frozen and reheated on the camp stove
tortillas or individual frito bags for walking tacos
desired toppings

Skillet Dinner - Polish Sausage, a 64oz can of greenbeans, a jar of sauerkraut, an apple, and some brown sugar, all heated on camp stove

Salsbury Steak - Pre formed 1/3 pound patties at home. Two per person. Cooked in skillet on camp stove
Served with instant potatoes and gravy, also cooked on camp stove

Chili - left over taco meat, a can each of dark kidney, kidney, and pinto beans, and a can of crushed tomatoes heated over the camp fire with all the regular chili seasonings added
chips
sour cream
cheese

Shish Kabobs
Teriyaki marinade, beef cubes, bell peppers, onions, zucchini, pineapple and onions cooked over the camp fire
Rice cooked on the camp stove

Hot Dogs - 12 hot dogs cooked over the fire, buns and desired toppings
individual chips served as a side

Snacks:
Peanut M&M's
Larabars
Lunabars
Brookside fruit and nut bars
Roasted chick peas
Apples
Bananas

Overall Review: Amazing as expected

Weather: I was surprised how hot it was. During the day we saw temps as high as 80 a few days although each night it would dip well into the 40's. I hadn't packed clothing for that warm of weather so the girls had to re wear their only t-shirts during the warm part of the day before bundling up in several layers to get through the night.

Camp Review; Mary's Lake:
Perfect campground. The location is nice. Very close to the Park entrance which is convenient.
They have showers which are affordable ($2.00 for 6 minutes) and laundry at the camp office/store. The items in the store are very steeply price so be sure you've packed all the ingredients you need.
There is drinking water near the camp store so bring a drink cooler and fill as you need.
The camp store also sells ice, very reasonably priced, for packing and repacking your cooler.
My very favorite things about Mary's Lake camp ground is the dish washing facility. It's located on the outside of the bathrooms and has nice hot water. It is a single sink so you still need a dishpan for washing or rinsing as to not waste a ton of water.
The campground has a very nice play ground and pool.

Camp Review; Pinion Flats Campground:
The campsites here are packed in closely but you still feel secluded as each campsite has a stone wall around it with a few trees between you and the next site.
Showers: NO
Bathrooms are decent but don't have soap so bring germX.
There is a "dish washing station" located at the bathrooms but it doesn't have hot water so isn't much of a dish washing station in my opinion. You could just use it as running water and go heat it over your fire, I suppose.
There is no camp store or information site at this camp. There are camp hosts who have signs at their campers so you could ask them questions if you had them.

Park Review; Rocky Mountain National Park
The park has a few visitor centers although I only went into the Alpine one. Wesley went to the Fall River Visitor Center and did pick up a few maps and received helpful information. I enjoyed the Alpine Visitor Center and did some souvenir shopping and coffee buying there.
The park has many many trails, trail heads, and just lots of beautiful scenery.
I definitely would recommend the seasonal Old Fall River Road.
We hiked the Alpine Ridge Trail, which I enjoyed a lot, its a short hike and relatively easy.
We started at the Bear Lake Trailhead and hiked to Alberta Falls then on to Mills Lake. Its a well maintained trail that covers lots of different terrain. I'd put it at a moderate hike. Lots of Aspen groves which are beautiful.
Our last hike we started from Milner Pass. Poudre Lake had lots of wildlife around it. the hike is along the Continental Divide so it allows for a lot of breath taking views.

Park Review; Great Sand Dunes National Preserve
Pinion Flats Campground is located in the park which we find very convenient.
The Visitor Center is very informative and well kept. The gift shop in it has several nice items ranging from a variety of prices.
The Dunes are very neat. You can wander as you want, hike, roll, we even saw people skiing and sledding. They're just a lot of fun. It is very cold out on them in the morning before the sun reaches you but the instant the sun does reach you you will start sweating and feel the sand warm beneath your feet before it starts cooking. Thankfully you can always dig yourself in a little and find cool sand once again.

Restaurant Review; The Egg & I:
Well run, busy little place. The management/staff were very friendly with our kids, they brought an entire lunchbox of toys with as they sat us.
We all enjoyed our food and found the prices reasonable.
We purchased their house made hot sauce as a gift for my dad. It's not very spicy but pleasantly jalapeno-y.

Restaurant Review; Poppy's Pizza and Grill
They have several different variety of pizza's. It reminded me a lot of the pizza I grew up eating as its much the same style as my mom makes: the crust isn't thick but it's not cracker thin and crunchy, heavy on the cheese as well as the rest of the toppings. It was very filling and although a little expensive for a group you are definitely getting your money's worth of ingredients; its a solid pizza. We ordered their olives as an appetizer and they were very enjoyable and only $3 for about half a pint jar full.

Restaurant Review; The Golden Burro
The history of this place in neat and the food is fine. They have a lot on their menu and I chose the Burro Bowl; a heap of mashed potatoes with corn and fried chicken pieces smothered in gravy, it was pregnant lady paradise and was plenty to feed me for $7.
They aren't very kid friendly although they do have a reasonable kids menu.
Overall I would probably only visit here again because of the nostalgia of it being the site of Wesley's and my first date.

Budget:
Camp;
Mary's Lake Camp Ground - $150 for 5 nights
Pinion Flats Camp - $20 for 1 night

Groceries - $300

Prepared Food - $150

Coffee Stops - $15

Vehicle Park Pass - $30

Souvenirs - $152 or as little as you chose to make it
[3 adult t-shirts, 2 kids t-shirts, hat, 2 coffee mugs, and stuffed animal]

Gas - $90 - 3 fill ups in Colorado [We got "free" gas through Kansas]

Trip Total = $907

Keep in mind the food quantities would have been different for a different group. We were traveling with 4 adults and two children.

And there you have it, my most detailed break down of a trip, or the most detailed I can come up with at 1:15 AM.. I'm really trying to get back into this blogging thing, working it in around life ;)

I hope this inspires you to plan a trip. It really can be affordable and the memories will be worth it!
~Haley