Grand Lake, Colorado

We had our vacation planned for Grand Lake, Colorado ~ just outside of Rocky Mountain National Park. We were slightly delayed on our trip, and had to drive from IL to MN for a funeral. We were walking distance from the Mall of America. Of course, James had to go to the Lego Store while we were there.
We then drove from directly from MN to Iowa to Nebraska to Colorado. The drive from Denver to Grand Lake is about 2 hours. It's on the west side of the mountains (Estes Park is the east side of Rocky Mountain National Park), so we drove through Denver, and up into the mountains.

We stayed in a cabin/house in Columbine Lake, about a mile or two from downtown Grand Lake. It's a small private lake with gravel roads. It's not a resort or hotel, but a housing/cabin community. No green grass here, just gravel and trees ~ very rustic ~ and very quiet. This is Rachel and James as we were walking the road around the lake.


This is the cabin I found on-line, the Aspen Glen. Sometimes photos and descriptions can be misleading, but not on this place! I think the photos on the rental website didn't do this place justice. It had enough space to spread out. It had 2 bedrooms upstairs, and a downstairs bunk room~ which had 2 sets of bunk beds, plus and extra tv. This way no one had to share beds, so all the kids were happy.