In our minds, the stay in Breckenridge marked the end of our summer travels and the beginning of our fall excursion. Now that we had been in the trailer for a few months, we began to discuss future plans in terms of seasons (“what to do during winter?” or “where to go next summer?”) so it was only natural for us to go with a seasonal segmentation system.
Norman, Oklahoma was the first major waypoint (boulder) on the fall leg of our journey. We needed to make it home by Thanksgiving, but that was a month and a half away, so we had plenty of time to do some more exploring (aka, plenty of room to fill pebbles in-between the boulders).
Breckenridge was the first such fall pebble. This famous skiing town had long been on our list of places to visit, but we never imagined we would be bringing our house with us (cat and all) when we finally rolled into “Breck.”
Our accommodations for the week were in the Tiger Run Resort – a combination of fancy RV park and rustic resort located about halfway between Frisco and Breckenridge. At a little over $100 per night, Tiger Run was easily the most expensive stop in our 4+ months on the road. Although the surrounding area was gorgeous and the park was quite nice (complete with indoor pool/hot tub), we don’t think it was worth the price tag. Perhaps if we were there during skiing season, the price may have been worth it since the park is a mere 10 minutes from the nearest slopes, but it was simply too pricy given the time of year.
This isn’t to say we didn’t enjoy Tiger Run – we actually think it’s one of the better parks that we’ve stayed in. A great feature of Tiger Run was the adjacent hiking path which was accessible directly from the north side of the park, allowing us to quickly hit the trail once the workday ended.
Speaking of hiking, since the journey from Denver was a relatively short one, we opted to go for a little hike in celebration of Sam's birthday (followed up by a yummy surf and turf for dinner later that evening)! Given the days were getting shorter and the sun was rapidly making its way westward, we settled on the nearby Minnie Mine Trail. This three-mile trail winds its way through the ruins of an abandoned gold mining operation and features plenty of photo opportunities highlighting the old mining equipment.
The foliage was amazing on this hike. The aspens had reached peak yellow and nearly everywhere we turned there was another burst of color waiting for us.
As a matter of fact, the foliage was a major reason why we were in the area to begin with. We were hoping that we could catch the trees at just the right time so we could take our engagement photos with a lovely autumn background. Sadly, by the time we were able to meet our photographer later in the week, the aspens in the area had largely shed their leaves, but there were still a few holdouts among the trees – at least enough for us to snap some great pictures!
Other than that, it was a largely quiet week for us besides a little incident – a frozen water hookup in the middle of the night. Through this point we hadn’t had to really worry about freezing pipes, but now that we were back up in the mountains and the seasons were changing, it had become a concern. For the time being, we chose to fill up our freshwater tank and run the water pump until we could figure out a workaround. Ultimately, we discovered the existence of heated water hoses and promptly ordered one which we picked up in Norman over Thanksgiving.
As we said goodbye to Breck, we punched Ridgway State Park into Google Maps and made our way deeper into the Colorado Rockies.