Keystone: Feeding Fish, Finding the Perfect Ride and Learning You Can't Go Back

As a child, my family use to go to Colorado every summer.  We had a vacation home in Breckenridge that we would visit during ski season and every July to escape the heat at home.  Many of my favorite memories are from things we did together in Colorado from trips to Vail, paddle boat rides on Keystone Lake and ice cream cones in downtown Breckenridge. 

Part of the reason I really wanted to take the kids to Colorado for a family vacation was to create these types of memories with my own kids.  While the vacation P and I planned was very similar to those I took with my own family; it was about making some new memories too. Of course, I couldn't resist "showing off" some of my old haunts. 

In reality, however, you can never really "go back" again.  Things change and you change and those things that seemed so cool to a ten year old in the 1970's aren't really so cool for your own kids in 2012.  Thus was our stop at Keystone Lake!

Those great paddle boat rides of yesteryear are now $16 for a 30 minute spin around a really small lake.  This was not a great deal when you consider we just canoed on a huge lake for much cheaper per minute.  The shops and restaurants that I thought so quaint and fun are now just bars and ski shops with overpriced merchandise.  It was rather disappointing.  But we managed to have fun anyway feeding the fish, playing on the playground, and finding a quadracycle for Mr C to ogle after (this boy really thinks we need one of these!)

Guess you could say I'm glad we were staying in the new part of Keystone and far from the reminder of what use to be and a good lesson really in enjoying the moment instead of trying to recreate something that's better off left in your memory!  I'm just grateful that even in this part we are creating new memories for us to have in our family lore for years to come!