John Denver-poet or liar?

One of my favorite movies growing up was "Dumb and Dumber". In fact, one of my favorite lines in the movie was the one regarding John Denver. They questioned the honesty of John Denver regarding the Rocky Mountains. I am here to testify, that John Denver, in fact, was not full of it. These Rocky Mountains are awesome.
As much as Lisa and I enjoyed camping in Maryland and Delaware for the past four years, we always missed the Rocky Mountains. I loved being able to camp in the mountains of Utah with the pines and aspens. I loved the solitude that camping provides, something very, very rare in Maryland camping. And I loved the familiarity with the trout streams out west and the dirt roads and trails that are so non-existent in Maryland.
Tuesday morning Lisa and I packed up the Pathfinder and headed out to the Collegiate range with the kids. I went picture happy with this post, but it's with a purpose. One is to make those not near these kind of mountains jealous, and two, to prove that John Denver was right.
We headed to Buena Vista, and this is a scenic shot from the highway looking west.
We went to Cottonwood Lake, and set up camp. Here is our tent all set up.

This is the view we had from our campsite. Pretty amazing scenery.

Here is a shot of Cottonwood Lake looking east.

Another view from our campsite. Jealous yet?

Lisa standing next to our new rig.

Tucker tried his luck at fishing with this big stick. Surprisingly, he didn't get a bite.

We went for a hike as a family, and the kids loved it.

They really thought the rushing water under this bridge was cool.

Here is a glimpse at us lounging around the campsite. And if you notice my shirt, yes, O'doyle does rule.

Tucker and Aubrey loved playing with their chair. They would sit in it, get up, move it to the other side of the campsite, tussle over who got to sit in it there, and then move it again. They loved it.

Lisa taught Tucker the art of roasting marshmallows. He loved eating smores and helping daddy with the fire.

This picture shows just how much Aubrey loves gettting dirty. We couldn't keep her face clean for more than two minutes. She loves to roll around and get dirty. That's our little princess!

On the way out we saw a group of bighorn sheep, so I snapped a couple pictures of them with my new telephoto lens. What a sweet lens it is.